There are over 750,000 predators in the United States and you should think about this before you start sharing snaps of your baby on social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. I don’t mean to scare you. It can be scary to think that a picture posted on the internet can be used by perverts to harm your child.
Look at the startling statistics presented in the presentation on the picture below. It illustrated that parents are busy posting pictures of their children online.
The video below has been viewed by over 59 M users and it is an experiment of how predators can even be bold enough to start reaching out to your little ones. Watch the little girls in the real dangers shown in the video below.
The predators can also steal personal information of your child and use the same information when approaching your kid (appearing as a friend to the parent of the kid)at perhaps a public playground?
In the video below by Today, a stranger started posting pictures of a baby whose picture was posted on Instagram. He was claiming the baby was his daughter.
Look at the good pictures he stole in the snapshot below:
In another case, a child’s photo was tagged on a porn site. Total gross misconduct you can expect from predators lurking on the internet.
You can watch the full video below:
Dangers of posting children’s pictures on social media
The infographic below best illustrates the dangers of social media to babies and children
Steps To Take To Secure Your Baby Photos On Social Media Sites
Now that you’ve realized all the potential dangers of posting the pictures of your kids, you should try to reduce your online presence by changing the settings on your social media account to private. You can set the settings so your friends are the only ones able to access the photos of your baby that you post on social media sites such as Facebook. Facebook actually allows you to create a list which essentially allows you to limit access to any of your postings further. I have created a list with only the members of my family in it. This has allowed me to be sure no one else is accessing or misusing the photos I post online.
Someone Is Posting Pictures of My Child On Instagram or Facebook
If someone is posting pictures of your baby on Instagram or on facebook, consider taking pro-active steps to bring this to an end. You have to relay your concerns about the dangers of posting pictures on social media sites which gives access to thousands of predators. You can follow more steps suggested in the last section of this article.
How to tell Family not to post pictures of Baby on Social Media such as Facebook
I had experienced this first-hand when my mother-in-law and other members of my family really liked posting pictures of my baby online. It took me some time to start being proactive about telling them to stop posting pictures of my baby on Instagram and Facebook. You should note that Facebook and Instagram do not take down a picture and you should not bank on emailing them requesting the picture to be deleted. This means that you have to do it yourself. You need to take action that would ensure you have control over the privacy of your baby’s phots.
So how do you tell them?
- Without thinking too much about it, simply ask the person who posted it to delete it. If they’d rather crop the image so your baby is not shown, that’s not a bad option. You can use words such as “I’m not very ready for this online world yet.” This way you come off as old school just afraid of the internet.
- Ask whoever posted the picture to remove identifying tags such as location tags, name and face tags.
- Request the person who posted the picture to ensure their privacy settings secure the photos of your baby’s photo. If you are fine with limiting the number of people who can see it, this can be adjusted in the settings.
- Ask the person posting the baby photos to use a private photo-sharing site such as Picasa or Flickr. These apps require logins and are more secure.
Is someone close to you, perhaps a friend or someone you know posting pictures of your baby/child without your consent. Perhaps you are wondering how you can tell your mother-in-law not to post pictures because explaining privacy and its dangers can be hard to grasp for some people. As suggested above, the approach of being afraid of the internet and how photos online can be used by anybody including predators has worked well for many people.
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Sandra W. Bullock is a grand-mom to two boys and is part of the review board here at Motherhoodhq.com. She is responsible for the quality control of content and is among our most experienced moms. She has over 20 years of writing parenting content online focussing on baby safety indoors and outdoors. She has written widely on babyproofing nurseries and homes for infants and toddlers and published work on privacy and the safety of baby monitors. She is a renowned advocate for non-wifi baby monitors that cannot be hacked and spends a lot of time educating parents on how to secure their homes – including ways to secure the baby from harm in and around homes. Sandra is a native of Atlanta where she also works. She can be reached using her email, Sandra.w(at)motherhoodhq.com
