Influencer parents and the kids who had their childhood made into content • Hacker News Board

Re: Influencer parents and the kids who had their childhood made into content

#131

Post by zomgwat » Mon, Mar 13, 2023, 6:20 PM UTC

kroolik wrote: post #115

zomgwat wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife and I have done similar. We privately share photos. It took a bit for my mom to get over the fact that she can’t post pictures of her grandkids on Facebook but I was eventually able to explain why in terms she understood.

What arguments have you used to finally convince them?

Several things helped her accept the situation.

1. We regularly share photos through private photo albums. This allows her the same exposure to photos of the grandchildren as social media would.

2. We made it clear she's free to share photos with people via direct text messages. It adds a bit of friction and keeps the photos relatively private.

3. Explained that it's the right of our children to control their presence online (with some parental assistance). They aren't old enough to do that so until then, please don't share.

4. Emphasize many times that it's about protecting and empowering our kids. It's not about preventing her from showing off her grandchildren.

Re: Influencer parents and the kids who had their childhood made into content

#132

Post by jjulius » Mon, Mar 13, 2023, 6:22 PM UTC

zomgwat wrote: post #131

kroolik wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What arguments have you used to finally convince them?

Several things helped her accept the situation. 1. We regularly share photos through private photo albums. This allows her the same exposure to photos of the grandchildren as social media would. 2. We made it clear she's free to share photos with people via direct text messages. It adds a bit of friction and keeps the photos relatively private. 3. Explained that it's the right of our children to control their presenc…

I commented elsewhere and mentioned that #1 is the path we took. That said, while we encountered next to no resistance on this policy from our family, we've found that in practice, my mother really thrives on #2, to the point where I'm confident that our broader family/friends group gets pictures directly from her and hardly bothers visiting my private gallery.

Re: Influencer parents and the kids who had their childhood made into content

#133

Post by jstarfish » Mon, Mar 13, 2023, 6:25 PM UTC

mablopoule wrote: post #92

stametseater wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was there ever a pressing need for that cover to exist in the first place? I don't think our society would be culturally impoverished if they had simply taken a picture of something else.

Yeah, society would absolutely be culturally impoverished if this would be considered off-limit. Limiting the space of 'allowed' expression and saying it's okay because culture is not essential isn't really the best path to take as a society.

If you Photoshop the penis out, there would be nothing remarkable about the cover. It was child exploitation as a marketing gimmick.

I think the Scorpions did something similar with putting an underage girl on the Virgin Killer album, but that may have been non-photographic (not looking it up).

Decades later, Nirvana is still a topic of discussion because of it (and still earning royalties), while the kid in question whose image is used in perpetuity gets told to pound sand because he missed an arbitrary deadline.

We don't need to exploit children as a form of creative expression. We just don't. Depravity is not cultural enrichment.

Re: Influencer parents and the kids who had their childhood made into content

#134

Post by jimt1234 » Mon, Mar 13, 2023, 6:25 PM UTC

rychco wrote: post #112

ivraatiems wrote: post #78

I have some good friends who've gone the other way: they've asked that there be as close to no photos or videos of their child on any social media as possible. They don't post about him online, and they keep pictures of him in photo albums. When he was born, they asked all of us to please refrain from taking photos of him without their permission. I completely support this and I intend to do something similar for my…

I try to do this for myself, & often request that nobody take photos of me if possible, but definitely to not to post images of me online without my explicit permission. Even amongst my close friends & family, it frequently causes friction & outright anger.

Same. I wish this was the default (don't post pics of me without my consent), but unfortunately it's not. People just expect that everyone wants to be blasted all over social media, and they get butt-hurt when I ask them to remove pics of me.

- Hey, thanks for inviting me to your wife's birthday party. I had a lot of fun. But could you please remove my pic from your Facebook post?

- Why did you show up in the first place? OR You're in a lot of the pics; I can't remove all of them. OR Are you too good to be seen in pics with my wife and her friends? OR Are you hiding from the law? Did you murder someone?

Re: Influencer parents and the kids who had their childhood made into content

#135

Post by avisser » Mon, Mar 13, 2023, 6:26 PM UTC

prpl wrote: post #120

warner25 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this has been a source of hurt feelings for my parents, my wife's parents, and the parents of many of our peers... Facebook-addicted Boomers literally crying, "But everyone else gets to put up pictures of their grandchildren!"

Grandparents have shared photos of their relatives, just usually through wallet photos in the past, email maybe later - so it probably feels like a small delta on that. Probably doesn’t help more of their lives are spent online than in person now. I’d been printing off photos in various sizes (wallet to 8x10) and sending them along to my parents/grandparents - but it does take more effort to follow through. I do post…

We got the grandparents Aura smart frames. It's trivial to add photos and short videos. They get to see a new pic of the kid almost every day.

As soon as anyone visits their house, they immediately see recent pics of the kid.

It's been a big winner.

Re: Influencer parents and the kids who had their childhood made into content

#136

Post by paperwasp42 » Mon, Mar 13, 2023, 6:26 PM UTC

One of the most horrifying social media pages I've seen was an influencer who billed herself as a "trans activist" and documented every moment of her trans daughter's life.

This poor kid was 8-years-old and attempted suicide on a regular basis. Every time she tried to kill herself, the mom would document the gritty details, post pictures and details about it online (and of course get massive likes/shares by well-intentioned folks wanting to "raise awareness"), and request donations for her "activism."

That girl will never be able to "pass" as female due to her face/identity being plastered on social media as a trans kid. She also will have to live with the horror of millions of strangers knowing the gory details of her trying to shove a knife into her wrist, chugging Tylenol, and having complete mental breakdowns at school that required emergency medical intervention.

My gut instinct also suspects the girl's poor mental health has a strong element of Munchausen by Proxy. It is bizarre for an 8-year-old to know that Tylenol and wrist-slitting are both preferred methods for suicide, and to act on this knowledge.

Despite all this, the mom was clearly raking in donations, and collecting thousands of comments about what a "hero" she was for "bringing light" to trans issues. The horrified comments by trans individuals were always buried at the bottom of posts.

The entire page felt like thinly-veiled child abuse, but there isn't anything in Facebook's code of conduct that could be used to stop it. And Facebook of course had no incentive to address the content--the page had millions of likes and was surely a great source of traffic/profit.

I would love to see policies in place to restrict this sort of child exploitation. I am all for freedom of speech on social medical platforms, but blatant exploitation of children in exchange for money is a special sort of cruelty that should be reined in.

Re: Influencer parents and the kids who had their childhood made into content

#137

Post by MarkMarine » Mon, Mar 13, 2023, 6:29 PM UTC

zomgwat wrote: post #131

kroolik wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What arguments have you used to finally convince them?

Several things helped her accept the situation. 1. We regularly share photos through private photo albums. This allows her the same exposure to photos of the grandchildren as social media would. 2. We made it clear she's free to share photos with people via direct text messages. It adds a bit of friction and keeps the photos relatively private. 3. Explained that it's the right of our children to control their presenc…

We do this as well, specifically #1 we do through apple's private shared albums. It's quite good, we've got a big chunk of the family on there, so people comment as I assume they would on Facebook. This has assuaged their (proud grandparents) urge to post photos on their other social media, I think. I'm not on Facebook so I'm not positive what they are doing on there, but the banal comments that show up in the family feed remind me of why I'm not.

Re: Influencer parents and the kids who had their childhood made into content

#138

Post by smolder » Mon, Mar 13, 2023, 6:31 PM UTC

stametseater wrote: post #85

shagie wrote: post #84

Apparently, this is known as Sharenting and has its own Wikipedia page... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharenting > Sharenting is the practice of parents publicizing sensitive content about their children on internet platforms. While the term was coined as recently as 2010, sharenting has become an international phenomenon with widespread presence in the United States, Spain, France, and the United Kingdom. As such,…

> Proponents frame the practice as a natural expression of parental pride in their children and argue that critics take sharenting posts out of context. You know this framing is BS because they'd all scream bloody murder if monetizing that content were outlawed. It's not about pride in their children, it's about monetizing their children. Of course it's no surprise that somebody psychopathic enough to do this to thei…

No, really. A lot of people just want to show off kids to family and friends, and don't think about the repercussions of making it public on Facebook. The bulk of kid pics post there are not exploitation by the poster, they just don't know better than to trust zuck with photos of children.

Re: Influencer parents and the kids who had their childhood made into content

#139

Post by klyrs » Mon, Mar 13, 2023, 6:32 PM UTC

PurpleRamen wrote: post #59

davidguetta wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have weirdly mixed feelings on your comment. - I agree that parents who publicize their children on social media are massive creep in my opinion, who do a massive invasion of the child privacy. That should almost be illegal in my opinion since the child can't consent. - At the same time saying that no skin should ever be shown ever because "it titills sexual creeps" is a dark road that points in a direction which i…

> Should we forbid children to go to the pool because sexual creeps might go there ? It's significant easier to hone your creepiness when you have an endless supply of training-material. It might even help you to discover this side of you in the first place. > On the other hand in many places of Northern europe nudity is more common even in public. Not with children. Even in Europe parents are generally quite protect…

In the late 90s I was startled by a billboard in Germany which featured a dozenish naked boys, standing shoulder to shoulder and bearing all for the camera. It was an ad for a telecom, if I recall. Some of them had pubic hair, some were too young for that. Reading up on the legality of public nudity in Germany, I wonder if this would still fly today.

Re: Influencer parents and the kids who had their childhood made into content

#140

Post by valarauko » Mon, Mar 13, 2023, 6:33 PM UTC

davidguetta wrote: post #25

PuppyTailWags wrote: post #7

This article unfortunately doesn't cover a much darker part of the TikTok children: exploitation of the children for the titillation of online creepers. The Some Place Under Neith podcast goes into this extensively [their "Parasocial Pits Of Hell" series]. It's completely legal to vlog your children in swimming outfits or a similar level of skin exposure, have the children sing or perform for their "fans", and encour…

I have weirdly mixed feelings on your comment. - I agree that parents who publicize their children on social media are massive creep in my opinion, who do a massive invasion of the child privacy. That should almost be illegal in my opinion since the child can't consent. - At the same time saying that no skin should ever be shown ever because "it titills sexual creeps" is a dark road that points in a direction which i…

> That should almost be illegal in my opinion since the child can't consent.

Genuine Q: at what point can the child consent? A lot of people here are talking about a media blackout of their children since the child can't consent, but when does that end? Can a 5-year-old consent to have their pictures posted online? 10? 15?