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Never posting children's pictures online


Katy
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photo privacy  

135 members have voted

  1. 1. Do you post your children's photos online?

    • Yes, photos are so abundant there's no reason not to.
      40
    • Yes, but only a limited amount for safety reasons.
      16
    • Yes, but only privately to invited friends & family members only
      43
    • No, but I let them post themselves.
      11
    • No, for specific security reasons (family prominence, parents in military, legal or law enforecment careers that specifically could make your children a target).
      7
    • No, I feel any posting of children in social media is exploitative.
      7
    • No, there are far-reaching implications of facial recognition technology and I'm not exposing my children to that.
      12
    • Are you kidding? I want my kids to be social media famous.
      0
    • Obligatory other
      9


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A few people I know have recently made the comment that they don't post their children's pictures on the internet ever.  I don't mean foster children or others with legal reasons to keep your photos private, I mean biological ones without obvious reasons to avoid posting.  I tend to be fairly private on the internet but don't avoid posting pictures entirely. Do any of you do this?  Why?

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My DS13 said no from a very young age, DS12 said no a few years ago. DS13 doesn’t want his photos floating around and manipulated because he has seen what photoshop can do to strangers’ photos by other strangers, for example all the magazine articles about models, actors and actresses being photoshopped. He knows how to screenshot or download photos to use as computer wallpaper at a very young age, so he knows others can do the same thing.

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I have a password protected album that the grandparents have access to.  Family are asked not to put our kids' photos online--particularly on Facebook.  Because, yeah; don't want photos of our kids potentially saved on some random person's computer.  Gross.

Edited by CES2005
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I don't mind if my kids are in photos of their activities.  They usually are not identified.  I post on social media, but I try to keep my security pretty tight.  I've always kept posts light and things I wouldn't mind their future employer or future college or future spouse seeing.  ;)  My kids are teens so they are kind of picky now about my posting anyway.   My posting tends to be like "here's kid in New York standing in front of  a building" "here's kid at a music recital" "here's kid at a dance performance". 

 

My kids do theater, so we have to sign photo releases for a lot of  those types of activities and one of my kids has been in some more professional productions.  But again, it has not felt exploitative at all. 

 

I am very careful about anonymity when talking about their character quirks and flaws and never post that kind of thing publicly.  I am strongly opposed to reality TV with kids on it.  I don't even like public blogs about families where you can easily figure out who the kids are if it's personal information about the children.  That kind of thing could follow a kid for a long time.  Can you imagine a Dugger kid trying to move away and start over somewhere?  Or Honey Boo Boo? 

 

I don't think too hard about someone saving photos online.  Legally someone can be taking your photo when you're in a public place anyway.

 

I know some homeschool families in some of our groups who insist their kids aren't in photos.  Which is FINE.  But since we're talking about teens, you need to tell your kids to stay out of the view lines of phones because the teens are taking photos on their cameras and posting them who knows where all the time.  You should be warning your kids about this early and often if you really don't want their image captured.

Edited by WoolySocks
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I don’t worry about the occasional photo of them online, posted under my heavily locked down Facebook page or under our private homeschool group’s FB or Shutterfly pages. A small handful appear as profile pics, probably fewer than my own name or photo were in the paper as a kid.

 

I do try to keep their names off of anything public (not private FB). I don’t use my own name on public forums, although I realize that it’s relatively easy for those of you who have followed my story to find it. I also keep anything that could be a future security question answer for them off of social media. (Like my maiden name, although if you read my FB, you can probably figure it out based on my relatives’ comments. But again, I keep all of that locked down to non-friends. Extremely little shows to non-friends.)

 

I am also super careful what I say or post about them on social media. Their foibles and struggles are not for display, even privately on FB. I’m even extremely cautious what I say about them here. I don’t post potentially embarrassing photos of them online at all. No baby bath photos, for instance.

Edited by happypamama
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I am ok with posting them, but I always ask the kids for their permission before I do. Sometimes they say they would rather not have something posted and so I don’t. Or maybe I’ll retake a picture if they want me to if they don’t like the way it looks. And I run the “caption†I’ll write with the picture by them, too, as I tend to write humorous things and I want to make sure it’s coming across the right way and doesn’t inadvertently disrespect them.

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I chose other because I do a limited amount on places like Facebook, and I've even done a few here, but I don't do limited for safety reasons. I do it to respect their wishes. They don't want their lives spread over social media for all my friends to see. Some of my friends have shown the pictures to their kids, and those kids say something to mine. One teased my son about something a year or so ago, so that's when I started being more reserved. They know I want to post a few here and there for family and friends to see, so I just get their permission to do it. They don't mind obliging me occasionally. 

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I have never posted their pictures online. At least where you could see their face. We did post a couple of pictures of dd doing things on diy.org but those never showed her face.

 

I don’t see any reason to post their pictures. Family and friends see them in person or will get pictures via text or snail mail.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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I posted them without much care when they were younger. Now that they're older they want a say and that's fine too, so I post only with their permission. They're welcome to post whenever they like.

 

ETA: The people who are paranoid about every single image are... frustrating to me. But also, I respect their boundaries and I'm not going to argue. But I once nearly lost a friendship over someone else posting a password protected link to a video of a play the kids had performed. The kids in question didn't have their names on the video. And the mom who was making the objection had previous participated in local news stories which were easily found archived online with her kids' names flashed on the screen. I was like, why is this password protected video so that friends and family who live far away can see the play with a dozen kids such a big deal but the freaking local news is okay? I genuinely don't get it.

 

Edited by Farrar
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I had a blog for several years that I posted photos in (my kids were 4yo/10yo-6yo/12yo).  But that blog one day just disappeared and I've never found it.  I know it existed because there is a snapshot of it on the Wayback Machine...but I digress.  Anyway, these days I only post their pictures very occasionally on Facebook which is just friends and family.

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I voted other.  I don't post many photos of my kids online, but occasionally.  Most of those are done privately for family and friends.  Generally, I keep the numbers down and keep most private for family/friends only, but I don't think that there's anyway to keep images completely safe and secure so I don't think that those photos I share privately are any more secure than the occasional photo that ends up being posted publicly. 

 

Generally I think there's SO MUCH info out on the internet that I don't think sharing the occasional picture here and there is going to put anyone at risk.  But at the same time, the less that's out there, the better IMO, so I just keep postings to a minimum.  I don't do facebook/twitter/snapchat/whatever, and I don't share much on the little bit of social media (like this board) that I do use.  I feel like if someone's really really intent on finding us, they probably could, but they would have to have a specific reason/idea to do so and I can't think there are many people looking to do that. 

 

Ditto!

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I did not vote in the poll.  The poll is biased and there is no option for just saying "No, because I feel like this is the best choice for my family".  BTW - my kids are now young adults and they are more cautious about social media than I am of their own free choice.

 

I do not get the ire that others may have about my personal choices about not posting pictures of my family.  Why in the world would it be anyone else's business? 

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I do post my kids photos on FB and Instagram but both are made as private as possible. I keep my friends list to family and friends that are like family. Sometimes my kids will ask me not to share a certain picture so I don’t. Other times they will ask me to post a certain picture.

 

My friends know that I’m not big on my kid’s pictures being shared publicly so they will ask before posting. I don’t mind them being posted as part of a group, but only if they aren’t named.

 

My cousin has a daughter in kindergarten in Texas. The teacher takes a ton of pictures and my cousin shares all of them, on FB all the time. She doesn’t just share the ones of her daughter. These aren’t necessarily shots of the entire class but two or three kids together. Some parents are tagged. That bothers me for some reason. I have a hard time believing that all parents who authorized their kids’ pictures being shared on FB realized just how many people are seeing those pictures.

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I don't post my kids' pics socially. I view it like I do ear piercing, I want them to be able to give consent about what happens to their body and images of their body. Technology is advancing so quickly that I am not comfortable posting and having those used for some purpose they didn't agree to in the near or far out future. I don't care if others do it, I just don't.

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We are immigrants, and before social media, a family website was our way to share pictures with our circle of friends and family back home.

Sure, strangers could search and find the images. But there was nothing I would have been concerned about. So we climbed a bunch of mountains with our kids. Big deal.

Edited by regentrude
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I don't post my kids' pics socially. I view it like I do ear piercing, I want them to be able to give consent about what happens to their body and images of their body. Technology is advancing so quickly that I am not comfortable posting and having those used for some purpose they didn't agree to in the near or far out future. I don't care if others do it, I just don't.

 

 

This. Unfortunately, you can post all kinds of completely appropriate pics and someone with the knowledge can "take a head off" a picture and paste it onto another body and much more. 

I totally understand all the family pics that are being shared and grandma, aunts and uncles loving it - and for the most part it will be okay but now and then some deranged individual comes along looking for material for nefarious purposes.

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I do not post pictures of my children online, even privately for my family, and I never have. I am not on Facebook. I have allowed their pictures to be used by their dance studio and school, and so on, but they are always group shots and are never identified by name.

 

My oldest does have a social media account and shares images of herself with friends. She is 16, and it's an important way of socializing among her peers. We talk about being careful about posting things online. Now that she is older, it is her choice. My younger children are not allowed to have social media accounts yet, though they ask often.

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I have a blog that is fairly inactive. I used to post more photos when the kids were younger. In general on the blog I was careful about the stories I told and the photos I posted. I tried to be conscious about how the kids might feel about what I wrote or said. So something general was fine...but not specifics and I was careful not to complain about kids. I mostly wrote about books so it wasn’t a big issue. As the kids got older I posted less photos. I have Instagram now. My oldest hates having his photo taken so I am careful about not posting photos of him that show his face. I post occasional photos of the other two who are the kind of kids that would probably become kid YouTubers if I would let them. I still try and be careful about what I post as far as not posting anything that would embarrass them. 

 

I didn’t vote on the poll as I didn’t really feel like any of the choices apply. I would say “Yes, but I try and be cautious of what they want and are ok with.†I’m not that worried about safety for what I post. But I do want to make sure I don’t post things that they don’t want posted. 

 

 

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 My kids were tweens when I got on facebook, so I posted very few photos and always asked permission.  Once they were out of high school, I didn't bother to ask, just don't do it. But we are not big social media users.  

 

I do know of some people who don't even ask their teens or young adult kids for permission to post photos.  The thought is "I'm your mom and will always be your mom, so I can post your picture whenever I like."   Yikes.  I can't imagine that.

 

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Unfortunately, you can post all kinds of completely appropriate pics and someone with the knowledge can "take a head off" a picture and paste it onto another body and much more.

This article is hilarious and the people in the photoshopped photos did give consent, except for the first photo of “the girl in the violet skirt†which was submitted by a friend I guess.

This guy is taking Photoshop requests from strangers, and the results are amazing http://www.businessinsider.com/literal-photoshop-twitter-2016-3

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This. Unfortunately, you can post all kinds of completely appropriate pics and someone with the knowledge can "take a head off" a picture and paste it onto another body and much more. 

 

That is true, but out of the wide array of things I could be worried about, with respect to my kids' welfare, this hypothetical possibility ranks very low on the list. And any person can  legally take pictures of any other person in public, if they so choose.

Edited by regentrude
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I did not vote in the poll.  The poll is biased and there is no option for just saying "No, because I feel like this is the best choice for my family".  BTW - my kids are now young adults and they are more cautious about social media than I am of their own free choice.

 

I do not get the ire that others may have about my personal choices about not posting pictures of my family.  Why in the world would it be anyone else's business? 

 

I'm sorry, I really wasn't trying to be biased as much as get some different perspectives and guess at the reasons some of my friends limit their accounts and posts.  I'm curious if I should be more conservative with posting pictures of my kids, not judging your reasons for not posting them.

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I did not vote in the poll.  The poll is biased and there is no option for just saying "No, because I feel like this is the best choice for my family".  BTW - my kids are now young adults and they are more cautious about social media than I am of their own free choice.

 

I do not get the ire that others may have about my personal choices about not posting pictures of my family.  Why in the world would it be anyone else's business?

 

I was coming back to post almost exactly what you’d said here, Jean, but you said it better, anyway. :)

 

I couldn’t vote in the poll, either, because it seemed like if I chose an option that said I never posted photos online, I would have to have some sort of extreme reason for it. I value my family’s privacy, but I don’t believe that there is anything wrong with other families making a different choice, and I would never say that they were exploiting their kids by posting some photos of them online.

 

Every time there is a thread like this, there are usually at least a few people who act like anyone who doesn’t allow their children’s photos to be posted online is being paranoid and ridiculous, and some even complain that they we are making other people’s lives more difficult. I don’t understand that at all. Those people can do whatever they like, but they don’t get to tell me how much privacy my family is allowed to have, and I don’t judge them for posting photos if it’s fun for them, so I would really appreciate the same level of respect in return.

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I'm sorry, I really wasn't trying to be biased as much as get some different perspectives and guess at the reasons some of my friends limit their accounts and posts. I'm curious if I should be more conservative with posting pictures of my kids, not judging your reasons for not posting them.

I didn’t think you were being intentionally biased, Katy, but I do think you probably should have included a more neutral option for those of us who don’t post photos online, but who don’t fit into your categories, which did come across kind of negatively. (But I don’t think you did that on purpose — it’s hard to figure out the phrasing for poll options!). :)

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I have a FB account but you can only see it if you are my friend.  But I did allow camps and such to post pics, normally they don't say names anyway.

 

My sweet youngest has been on the camp brochure for years.  He is probably the only Asian who came through their camp!  And he is sitting with a caucasian child and and african american, so it made for the perfect photo op.

 

 

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I have a fairly locked down Facebook with pictures of the kids.  Less of ds now because he doesn't like having his picture taken anymore and I respect that.   

 

I have a blog that I don't post much anymore, a business page and a business Facebook all with pictures but any pictures on there don't have names.

 

I never thought about the maiden name thing but nobody would be able to figure that out from my Facebook.  I don't think there's even one person on my friends list with my maiden name.

 

I have a policy to never post pictures of other people's kids without permission from kid and parent.  Usually I don't even bother and just crop out kids that aren't my own.   For my business, my registration form has a spot for people to note if they are okay with pictures being put on the Facebook page.  No okay, no pictures.  

 

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This. Unfortunately, you can post all kinds of completely appropriate pics and someone with the knowledge can "take a head off" a picture and paste it onto another body and much more.

I totally understand all the family pics that are being shared and grandma, aunts and uncles loving it - and for the most part it will be okay but now and then some deranged individual comes along looking for material for nefarious purposes.

Liz, I am starting to think our careers have made us paranoid and jaded haha!

 

Seriously though, we get to work with some of the hardest and darkest parts of humanity so it does make you stop and think.

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Honestly, I didn’t think he choices were great for people posting photos either. I picked one but it’s not entirely accurate. I think it’s probably hard to write a poll with many choices. Yes, no, and other might have been good!?

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I did when they were little - not, like, potty training pictures or anything, but a few posed pictures. But as they got older I only put those pictures under lock, and as they got older still I stopped posting without their permission. Because at a certain age, I think they are the ones with rights to current images of themselves.

 

I don't think there's much use worrying about harmless images of yourself. However, I did warn the kids that nothing in the world is really as private or protected as it seems. If you are doing something that you don't want others to know about, you shouldn't take a picture and you should DEFINITELY not post that picture online or share it with other people.

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Honestly, I didn’t think he choices were great for people posting photos either. I picked one but it’s not entirely accurate. I think it’s probably hard to write a poll with many choices. Yes, no, and other might have been good!?

I like your new name. :hurray:

 

Maybe it’s just a Cat thing, though... ;)

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I don't post photos of the kids myself, just because I don't have any social media accounts (FB, blog, etc) where that would be relevant, but DD has an Instagram account and posts her own photos, and there are photos of DS, identified by name, all over the internet because of his sport. Their friends post group photos that include them on FB, Instagram, and club websites, too. I don't have a problem with any of that.

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I post photos to my fb which is locked down to friends but I have a handful of "friends" that I don't actually know well. I post pictures to our homeschool blog, no names and I try to avoid location identifiers. I occasionally post a pic to a public fb group when it's relevant. For fb I always ask their permission. For the blog they know what it's for when I take it so they can (and sometimes do) say no to a pic. DD9 is very unlikely to ever say no to a pic or posting and sometimes asks me to post something. DD5 hardly ever says yes anymore. It took two days post front-teeth-fell-out just to get a personal pic I promised not to share. She usually let's me for things like our Disney trips and actual family photos, though.

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If we didn't use social media most of my/DHs family would have no idea what our kids/family are like in terms of personality or looks. We don't live near them and it keeps us connected in meaningful ways. DD uses messenger to keep up with her grandma and aunts, for ex. She can see when they're available and will randomly FaceTime or chat (which they love). I could spend multiple hrs. a week trying to keep everyone updated otherwise. In the early years of our marriage, I used to send newsletters. I'm glad that's no longer necessary. It took forever and was hard to manage all the addresses. That said, I don't use my kids actual names and my family has picked up on that; they don't either. My account is limited to close family and friends and neither of my kids are tagged in photos. Occasionally a fellow gym mom might post a photo in which DD was present but she was never identified by name then either.

Edited by Sneezyone
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Nope.

 

I didn't want my dd especially to get the idea that posting a bazillion selfies online as a teenager is a great idea. So we started by setting the example. No pics of the kids, or us, on the net (except some family who post anyway despite our preference)

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I share some on facebook, which I've locked down as much as I can.  I realize facebook is pretty slippery, security wise.  Nothing embarrassing, and as they're getting bigger, I've begun asking their permission to post some things.  

 

I never share photos of friends' kids, but do message them to the parents, in case they want to keep or share them.  I never know how someone will feel about that.  I did once, and the mom promptly asked me to take it down, which I did right away!

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I used to be very hardcore NEVER EVER NEVER post pics on-line...  I'd tell activities no...no.  Well as the years have gone by I've had a harder time controlling it.  Activities post them on-line.  Half the time they don't even ask.  Yes, I COULD make a stink, but I don't.  I've kinda given up.  I am not hog wild in the opposite direction, but I really don't worry so much anymore.

 

And people think nothing of taking pics of anyone anywhere.  Which I find rude as heck, but a lot of people think I'm nuts for saying so.  So I've lightened up there too because I can't fight it.  It is what it is. 

 

 

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Well we don't have FB/Snapchat/Instagram so we clearly aren't posting there. And we only occasionally email photos to friends/family. If we needed to, I'd ask family not to post either. But it's not been a problem. I am quite sure they are in group photos in various family/activity photos. And they've been in papers.

A person's digital footprint is a big deal. I don't want to make a big digital footprint for people who aren't me. When they are old enough, we will talk through things and they can start making their own choices.

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I have not read this thread.

 

I have a serious ZERO pics online for kids policy. I know pedophiles irl who just like to look at kids doing being-kids stuff, and get off on it.

 

Not sorry. No. Hard pass.

 

I've told my children they can cultivate an online persona when they are grown and prepared to do that work maturely themselves.

 

I make it a point to send pics and videos to friends and family.

 

You know pedophiles?  As in plural?  

 

Wow.  

 

Thankfully I know none.

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I know a pedophile. He was a good friend of mine in college. And then he went to jail. :sad:

 

And one of the camp counselors at my kids' summer camp last year was arrested for molesting two of the campers (no one in our group, but my kids did know who the guy was). So all the kids, including my own, from our church who went to that camp have met and interacted with a pedophile.

 

I'm not the person you addressed with your question, but I thought it was worth responding to. I myself don't avoid posting pictures online for that one issue, but, though not a primary reason, it is one of the many things that I considered when making the choice not to share photos.

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I said "only a limited amount," but it's not really for safety reasons as in pedophiles or whatever.  It's for privacy reasons.  Basically the whole world does not need to know my business.  In particular, there is a vindictive ex who does not need to know anything about my kids.

 

I don't believe posting a photo of my kid on facebook is going to cause a pedophile to discover the existence of my kid and make my kid a target.  If a pedophile wants to snatch a kid, there are much easier and more obvious ways to find one.  I also realize that random child snatchings are extremely rare.

 

I am more concerned about what stupid things my kids might do themselves as they get old enough to engage in social media.

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That you know of.

 

Presumably most children who were sexually abused by adults know pedophiles.

 

 

 

 

...Or at least someone willing to engage in pedophilic behavior, I'll add since I know someone will pop up to tell us that not all people who abuse children, even under the age of 9 (the typical demarcation line for statistical purposes, as above), are actually pedophiles.

I think Dawn may have been surprised that you know more than one pedophile well enough to know what kinds of photos they are aroused by.

 

I'm sure most of us have known a pedophile or met one without realizing it, but I would also bet that most of us don't know any details about their online viewing habits unless they get arrested and we see a news story about them, and even then we probably wouldn't know if they were looking at porn or if they were looking at everyday-type photos of children.

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