The first social media babies are adults now. Some are pushing for laws to protect kids from their parents’ oversharing
The first social media babies are adults now. Some are pushing for laws to protect kids from their parents’ oversharing
Cam Barrett knows the precise date of her first menstrual period. Her mother posted the news on Facebook. Barrett, who lives in Illinois, is part of a growing movement of young people who are urging lawmakers to protect children whose parents monetize their private lives on social media.
In addition to the details above, she also told lawmakers that when she was 15, she was in a car accident. Instead of extending a comforting hand, her mother shoved a camera in her face, she said. She later told CNN that her mother took photos and videos of her on a hospital gurney and posted them to Facebook.
That's just disgusting behavior. I don't think that woman was fit for parenting with or without social media.
Agreed, but the allure of fame and Facebook/YouTube made this behaviour worse.
Or at least gave the mom the tools to make it worse.
Her parents were her paparazzi, absolutely heartbreaking.
Perfect. Zero notes.
Social media should not be for kids.
The only time I even sort of liked social media was when it was only college students. I bet that's what the old internet people thought when I first got online in the eternal September...
It’s when they tried to monetise it and then figured out that “to make the most money, we need people to stay on our site the longest” that things went to shit.
The algorithms soon learned that echo chambers of outrage worked great to maximize viewership.
And we all suffer more for it.
Facebook used to just be your class schedule, and you could see the names and school emails of others in your class.
No profile pictures, no likes, not even friends.
It was just a way to email someone from class you thought was cute over the pretext of meeting up to exchange notes. That was all anyone used it for, for like the first year.
But Myspace and others already existed at that point, and it was always open to anyone. Only Facebook restricted it to people with .edu emails.
Permanently Deleted
McCarty said family vloggers should be regulated like the film industry, citing as an example a California law that mandates 15% of all child performers’ earnings be set aside in an interest-earning trust.
This is way too little in my opinion. It shouldn't be allowed in the first place. Any amount of earnings that relies on your children necessarily creates a conflict of interest and safety hazard. If you monetize your platform, no part of it should include minors, especially minors for which you are a guardian.
Agreed. Also this law can't even be enforced. Unless they're just passing this law so that abused influencer children will have legal grounds to sue their parents. But we should be passing laws to prevent the abuse in the first place.
This is HORRIBLE! What about PARENT'S RIGHTS? KIDS don't have Rights! ONLY Parents do!
-Republicans trying to Save The Children.
His wife is his daughter. Double ownership. /s
Yeah I have a 14 year old cousin who's entire life was documented on facebook and I've just been waiting for this movement to happen
spoiler
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we just had a kid, and we share the occasional photo of them on facebook. Usually really nice pictures, designed to make sure it wont impact them in the future.
Anything more personal is sent via direct chats, text messages, ect.
Cant image sharing personal details about my kid, the kind which would haunt them for years down the road.
Yep. I never post about my kids online, and never have. I will share photos and news directly with my own family over email, or our private discord server, but that's it. I also forbid my family from talking about me on social media other than in generic terms.
Have you considered switching to Matrix or Signal over Discord?
Signal is pretty good
Yes. Such a pain in the a$$ to get the family to switch though. I use Matrix myself all the time.
While that is better, that company still has access to all your content that is hosted there, as I understand it.
This might not seem bad but in case of a leak, breach or similar (which happens often sadly) everything is out there, too.
And when the hosting company gets bought, a whole new bunch of people will suddenly be in control of all your content, public and private, deleted or not, complete with copyright (even if limited), and all the freedom to immediately change TOS.
Yeah, about that. Discord is a privacy nightmare, so how about, no. A simple group chat would do, hell even WhatsApp has more encryption and privacy protection than discord.
I'm really glad this is happening. I will never forget Coby from Daddyofive.
I kind of miss the early days of social media when people weren’t posting about their kids 24/7. Granted, people weren’t posting about their kids because in the early days, most of us on social media didn’t have kids.
All the kid pictures replaced all of the other fun content, they lured the grandparents to the platforms, and the grandparents just wanted to talk about kids and shitty politics.
Well written article. The comparison to child actors and the idea that social media kids have no "home" to go to because the camera is always there really makes a whole lot of sense.
Kids of vloggers being regulated like child stars is definitely a compelling idea. Not sure how you would actually enforce that since there’s no registration as an influencer’s kid with a governing body (like child stars do with SAG), but it’s definitely a better way to go.
I fundamentally don’t understand why innocent photos of you as a child are a bad thing.
Article lede:
Cam Barrett knows the precise date of her first menstrual period. Her mother posted the news on Facebook.
“I was in fourth grade. I was 9 years old. The date was September 9, 2009. And my mom posted … something like, ‘Oh my God, my baby girl’s a woman today. She got her first period,’” Barrett said.
Pedophiles and non-consent are a couple good reasons not to.
It's ok to share with family privately for sure. Publicly to the rest of the world, got to ask why would a parent do that? Probably to gain attention for themselves, it's not for the child or considering the child. They are essentially starved for engagement and attention and using their child to satisfy that need. That's the problem.
Simply put the strangers that want to see your child are not always for good reasons. Why do that to them?
You could try reading the article:
Barrett, a social media strategist who lives in Chicago, said her life was chronicled so much online that a man once sent her a private message on Facebook when she was 12. The message said he’d followed her home as she rode her bike and knew where she lived. The incident increased her anxiety and made her feel like strangers were watching her every move, she said.
Well they didn't consent and now Meta owns photos etc of their entire life
Because these sorts of parents are stealing their children's privacy before they even have a concept of it. It's downright selfish to use one's children for internet attention and likes.
I'm glad I was raised before social media because my mom 100% would've posted every little detail about me and it would've been on fb for fucking ever. It would've been a nightmare.
It's bad enough having a gossiping, oversharing parent. Having one of those with access to social media must be a thousand times worse. I feel for those kids.