Probably like you, I’ve always struggled to find enough time to stay up to date with all my friends. So when I discovered social media in 2007 and joined Facebook, I was elated to have found a way to keep up with everyone. How I loved seeing snaps of my friends’ babies and kids. Hand on heart, it was joyous! However fast forward to 2024 and the ‘thinking’ around online sharing aka ‘sharenting’ has completely changed. No longer is sharing pics of our kids considered to be a safe and joyous past time. In fact, most experts now believe that sharing pics of our kids online may in fact be putting them in danger.
Mark Zuckerberg Never Shares Pics of His Kids Online
Despite the multitude of ‘mumfluencers‘ and parenting content creators on your social media feeds who normalise ‘sharenting’, some of the biggest players in the tech space have a very different approach. Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Meta, never shares pics of his daughters. In 2023, he did share a sweet family photo but he used emojis to cover his 2 older daughters’ faces. Although he doesn’t have kids of his own, Apple boss Tim Cooke has also spoken publicly about heavily encouraging his nephew to not be involved in social media. And this approach is also shared by many big names in Hollywood with celebrities like Kristen Bell, Gigi Hadid, and Orlando Bloom also blurring images or using emojis to help protect their kids’ privacy on social media.
Now, I’m not suggesting that we need to take all our parenting tips from tech giants and celebrities, but it does highlight a trend amongst high-profile individuals that I think is definitely worth noting. Could Zuckerberg’s use of emojis be a message that it is in fact the end user’s responsibility to protect themselves online? Or is it a result of firsthand knowledge of what happens when pictures of children end up in the wrong hands?
What Are The Risks With ‘Sharenting’ – Apart From Embarrassment?
While your teen may nominate embarrassment as the top reason for parents not to share pics online, the potential risks of ‘sharenting’ are far greater than simply avoiding the cringe. Here are the top ones to consider:
- When You Share Pics You Lose Control Of Them
The minute you upload a pic online, you are effectively relinquishing ownership of it. There’s nothing to stop anyone from copying, altering, editing, or sharing any picture that you post online. You may also be surprised to know that when you share a picture on social media, you are agreeing to the site’s terms & conditions – even if you haven’t read them! These terms often include a licensing agreement which means that once you have posted an image to a social media platform like Facebook, you are granting Facebook ownership of the content through a licensing term. In short, you lose control over who sees your child and what they do with the image.
- When You Share Pics You Risk Identity Theft
Cybercriminals are very skilled at putting together various ‘puzzle pieces’ to help steal an identity. If a parent is sharing regular happy snaps of key childhood events, it wouldn’t take a cybercriminal long to work out a child’s full name, birthday, hometown, or even school simply from the images, captions, and comments.
And once they’ve got their hands on the image and personal information, it takes little time for a skilled scammer to create fake profiles and an online identity. Once the fake identity has been created, applying for credit and setting up accounts becomes a breeze. According to the US Federal Trade Commission, identity theft of kids under 19 is a growing trend. In the first half of 2024, it accounted for 3% of all identity theft cases – up from 2% last year.
- When You Share Pics You Risk Sexual Exploitation and Deepfakes
Unfortunately, there are some depraved individuals in this world who make it their life’s work to steal images of minors for sexual exploitation purposes. Images are often edited and manipulated and then shared or sold on child exploitation websites. The sophistication of artificial intelligence software now means that images can easily be easily manipulated and even animated. This is known as deepfake technology and it is a very big problem. In fact the Australian eSafety Commissioner estimates that 90% of deepfakes are explicit. Having your image manipulated and used as a pornographic deepfake would be devastating. The impact on their mental health would be profound and it could also have lasting negative effects on one’s personal and professional life.
Are There Any Workarounds? Can You Give Me A Plan B?
In an ideal world, we would all follow the lead of Mark Zuckerberg and Hollywood celebs and not post any pic of our kids online. Remember, if there are no photos or personal details about your child online, then the problem goes away. But if you don’t think you can break the habit, then here’s what I strongly suggest you do from now on:
- Think Before You Share
Take a moment before you upload and ask yourself whether the photo really needs to be shared on social media. Perhaps you could share it in a group chat with close family and friends instead? Think of it as a numbers game – the less you share, the less risk there is that the photo will end up in the wrong hands.
- Check Your Privacy Settings – and Your Friends!
Every social media platform will have an option to allow you to only share images with your friends. Please set this up. Some will also give you the option to limit what can be shared from your posts – take this up too. And while you are at it, maybe give your friends list a once over. If you don’t even remember who someone is or have had limited contact, it might be time to delete!
- Minimise Personal or Identifying Information in Any Pic You Share
Always scan your pics to ensure there are no identifying details. Your child’s name, school details, and birth date are all nuggets of gold for a cybercriminal who is trying to steal an identity. Always disable geotagging which will also get rid of any potential location data on an image. But don’t forget that all digital pics contain metadata which includes the location of the pic. This can be disabled but if that’s all too complicated, simply use a screenshot of an image instead of the original image and the problem goes away!
- Consider Watermarking Photos
Adding a digital watermark to photos will make it much harder for deepfake creators to use your images. It becomes a more complicated procedure which could also possibly be traceable. There are several free apps that can easily help you add a watermark including my personal favourite Canva.
Now, if you’re reading this and feeling incredibly guilty about everything you’ve shared to date, please stop right there. Don’t beat yourself up. Parenting is a journey, and we are all learning and evolving as new information comes to light.
So, don’t panic. Instead, why not commit to rethinking your approach going forward? And if you have a spare hour or 2, go back over your social media posts and remove anything you aren’t sure about. And ensure all your settings are private!
You’ve got this!
