Is Facebook encouraging people to post pictures of their kids? If they are then they shouldn't be, but parents should also have the sense not to post them
In 2015 Facebook launched a feature (Scrapbooks[0]) specifically designed to encourage parents to upload and organise photos of their kids.
Their help centre still has an article under /help/scrapbooks [1] titled "Manage Photos of Your Child" with the first heading "How do I create a scrapbook for my child on Facebook?"
If Facebook's rules permit the posting of pictures of children then they are encouraging the practice. And governments are also responsible for permitting social media companies to allow such content to be posted publicly and permanently.
Yes, the parents should have the sense not to do this but the victims here are the children who can't stop their parents from invading their privacy. Many of them are now old enough to have their own social media accounts and discover what their parents did to them when they were younger. Presumably they aren't happy about what their parents did and I knew they wouldn't be back in the late 00s when this practice was first starting.
I mean, in a sense, aren't they? Not as specific as "post pictures of your two-year-old having a meltdown Right Now," but the whole thing with Facebook (or any social media) is that it encourages and rewards engagement.
When parents share about their kids online, in almost all cases I can think of, they are doing it for themselves, not for the child’s benefit.
i would disagree with that claim. at least when i share photos of my children the primary benefit is for my parents, my siblings, and very close friends. it is neither for my own nor my kids benefit.
the point of facebook is to stay in touch with your friends and family, and so it encourages to share with them. i am not on facebook myself, so i don't know how easy it is to create private family/friend groups. if it is easy then it should not be a problem to share family pictures in private, but apparently this is not happening and a lot of people are sharing in public instead? do they believe that only the friends that follow them can see them? never mind the privacy issues of facebook itself.
does it make sense to post it online instead of celebrating it privately with my child or face-to-face with friends
most of my friends and family do not live in the same city as i do. so face-to-face is not an option.
instead of chastising parents for using the tools available to them to stay in touch with their family, how about creating and promoting tools that allow sharing in a private and secure manner?
In 2015 Facebook launched a feature (Scrapbooks[0]) specifically designed to encourage parents to upload and organise photos of their kids.
Their help centre still has an article under /help/scrapbooks [1] titled "Manage Photos of Your Child" with the first heading "How do I create a scrapbook for my child on Facebook?"
[0] https://about.fb.com/news/2015/03/a-new-way-to-organize-phot...
[1] https://www.facebook.com/help/scrapbooks