Social media websites are popular sharing tools. We use them to post videos, photos and news about our lives. Parents are also big sharers, especially when it comes to their kids. Often they post more photos of their children than of themselves. Parents do that for many reasons. Most of them want to simply show the world how proud they are with their offspring, while others love to see when their social friends like or comment on their post.
However, what they don’t realize is that sharing pictures of your children can be extremely dangerous. You never know who is viewing them. Even worse, you never know who is downloading them.
In the Wrong Hands
One shocking and disturbing example of the seriousness of the problem comes from the US. About three years ago, the US police contacted a mother informing her that they have found an image of her young daughter on the computer device of a “child predator.” The picture was stored in a massive collection filled with many inappropriate pictures of other kids. How did that happen? Social media sharing!
The Loving Relatives
What is more worrying is that the danger of overexposure remains even if you do not share any photos of your children. Many of your relatives and friends are also online and they can too publish photos of your kids. In fact, think about how often that had happened.
This theory was recently confirmed by a study which again came from the US. In it, more than 2,000 mothers were asked if they have ever posted pictures of their kids on some social media site. Only 33% answered with a “yes.” That means that a huge part of the children photos online come from side sources like relatives and friends of the family.
Also, the fact that there is no way to protect these photos is even more disturbing. Anyone who has access to the internet can download images of your kids in just a click.
A Paradox
Here we have an interesting paradox. Photographers are now enjoying more and more copyright and protection rights than any other social media user. Their photos are protected and prevented from being downloaded by outside parties. In addition, many social networks scan the web to ensure that there are no copies of the “art” of their photographer users. In case a copy is found, it is quickly removed by request.
Unfortunately, that is not the case with parents and their children. As a result, apart from copyright infringement, parents and their children often need to deal with online stalkers, cyber bullying or even pedophiles.
What Can Parents Do?
The only thing parents can do to avoid these dangers is to stop posting photos of their kids. In addition, they need to ask their relatives and friends to not publish pictures of their children. Also, be sure to check the privacy settings of your social profiles. Limit all outsiders from viewing your content. For now, that is pretty much all you can do. Even if you stay offline, your precious photos may again end up on the wrong computer.
