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Is there any research about the benefits or risks of posting your child on social media? I understand privacy for public figures, but I also notice people who aren’t celebrities choosing not to post their children. When making this decision for my family, what should we consider?
—MK
This is a great question. Instagram was once for sharing cute pics with your friends and family. That’s a much smaller part of the landscape now (on Instagram, TikTok, or anywhere), and it’s led to a lot of questions about “how public is too public.” As you say, if you yourself are a public figure, shielding your kids may feel more necessary.
Outside of this setting, there are two concerns. The first is that someone might take the image of your child and use it in terrible ways. This is obviously extremely unlikely, but it’s technically not impossible. The second, which I think is more of an issue, is that the internet is forever. So it may be worth asking: when my kid is 15, 20, or 30, is it going to be okay with them that I posted this?
You’ll notice I haven’t cited data here, and that’s because there is really no data to guide this. We don’t know whether there are any negative impacts on adults of having their picture shared on Instagram as a child because those kids are not adults yet. And other than knowing it’s unlikely, there’s no data on the risks of a picture of your child being used in a nefarious way.
The upshot: These issues all matter much less if your profile is private, and you’re only posting for family. If you’re posting more broadly, thinking about how your child will feel in the future seems the most actionable item. This is a clear case where reasonable people are going to differ in what they do.
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Here in France there was a reportage about using Social Media kids photos to sell them as porn. This tv show came out during summer, where post picture of their kids in the beach. Has anyone heard about this?
One more reason to consider not posting on social media: Social media platforms using your kid’s photos to train their AI image generators!
Yes, this. I read they use all those adorable “x many months old” photos in this way. I can’t bring myself to never post pics again, but I’ve started deleting photos from my accounts as much as I can, and only post every couple of months.
I go back and forth on this. On one hand, pay me if you want to use my photos! (Though I get free services so I guess that’s the payment?) And on the other hand, I love having great AI to use
AI is so bad for the planet though. Please research the environmental impact before you use AI