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While certainly child predators are an issue, I don't even need to consider this sort of thing from that angle.

Why do you need to post publicly rather than marking it as unlisted and sharing the link with people you know and trust? Would you personally like to have a video posted of you in your underwear? Even if that's okay with you, perhaps your daughter will grow up preferring to have a more private life, and to keep things like that off the internet? But you've taken that choice away from her.

One of my favorite articles on this topic: https://slate.com/technology/2013/09/facebook-privacy-and-ki... (and a follow-up, after the author was informed that she had unwittingly allowed some photos of her daughter out onto the internet: https://slate.com/technology/2013/09/privacy-facebook-kids-d...). I don't know that I'd go as far as she has, creating a sort of "digital account trust", but I do like the approach of keeping a kid's private life off the internet until they're old enough to decide how much they want to share.

> While certainly child predators are an issue

In what sense "child predators" are an issue? Because they leave disgusting comments?

> perhaps your daughter will grow up preferring to have a more private life

... or perhaps she will grow up preferring to get as much publicity as possible. But if her parents do not publish that video on YouTube - she would lose that opportunity.

In any case, this publishing decision is in hands of her parents, and clearly, parents made up their mind (and decided to publish that video).

As far as underwear goes, no I wouldn't care if I was under age 3 in the photo. Seeing a kid in a diaper is an everyday public thing. In that case, she was in a diaper rather than a bathing suit because she was still diaper age. I don't see it remotely as something to be embarrassed about.

I don't "need" to post publicly but I also have no reason not to. I'm not going to let people having creepy thoughts control my life, unless there is an actual, tangible danger of harm.

Honestly, if I was worried about creeps, I wouldn't let her wear a skirt in public. I see other girls at the playground all the time that make me wince a bit...I'm far more likely to dress my daughter in pants. But at the end of the day, I'm 1000 times more concerned about people in real life than on YouTube....because they are right there.

Have you considered that your child might really regret all this stuff you're publishing about them when they're older?

I don't exactly care myself but I do appreciate that my kid isn't capable of consenting to having his childhood published. So I don't do it.

It seems really odd that you're reason for making that call is, "meh, why not?"

It's more like having considered it, I have no idea why they would care. A picture of me as a kid is essentially a picture of some other person who is five years old. When I see a picture of some five-year-old kid I don't think "Wow, they might feel terrible if they knew I could see this."

Maybe the sleepy baby girl from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTCQpjUrCe8&index=147&list=L... will grow up to be really shy and feel that wasn't her best angle. That strikes me as a personal hangup, not some constitutional right we should all be protecting her from.

It's funny how heated I can get about the notion "there are people whose reaction _isn't_ 'meh, why not?' What's wrong with them?" I'm like a militant meh-why-notter.

Militant meh-why-notter. Can I use that? :)

(thanks for your support, btw...)

What exactly is "all this stuff"? Photos of her playing?

I think about things she might actually be concerned about, but I see no reason she should be concerned about it, so no I'm not going to worry about it. If I was concerned, it might be about "should I put her in a dress or have her wear pants?" Because if she is wearing a skirt, someone could see her underwear, god forbid. YouTube or not.

At least on YouTube, it's pretty hard to follow someone home like can happen in the real world (e.g. Jayme Closs).

You know what I spend my efforts worrying about? Her getting hit by a car. Drowning. You know, real things.

> You know what I spend my efforts worrying about? Her getting hit by a car. Drowning. You know, real things.

Privacy is a real thing, and worrying about it isn't mutually exclusive with any other concerns. I'll be honest and say I'm somewhat disturbed by your whataboutism and nonchalant deflection of the fact you're pervasively invading your child's privacy and posting it online for all to see, consent be damned. Yes, you "see no reason" to be concerned, and that's your choice to make as a parent, but at the same time it's an extreme stance you've taken when, as other commentators have pointed out, the safest and most logical thing is to be more conservative with sharing such information.

"Privacy is a real thing, and worrying about it isn't mutually exclusive with any other concerns"

Sure, but you need to balance things. Having someone on the internet see a video of her, fully dressed, and getting aroused by it, doesn't exactly compare to any number of real issues. As I said elsewhere, if I actually was concerned about her privacy so much, I'd go to a bit more effort to avoid having her wear a skirt or dress when she is playing. That seems like a good first thing to worry about.

Although not many people see the videos I post of her, she was thrilled when a nearby YouTuber (a 7 year old girl who actually has a significant number of subscribers) found her via this video and we'll hopefully get together for skateboarding together. So there are positives about putting them out there. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuIEW9MCmcg

Meanwhile, I've dealt with my daughter's mother for years, as she freaks out over the most ridiculous tiny irrational fears, while nearly killing our daughter due to her recklessness in other ways.

You may think I have an extreme view, but you know who has to be concerned about being seen as having extreme views on things like this? People who are in contested custody situations, where their ex hires aggressive, unethical lawyers willing to grasp at any straw to tear down their parenting in a court of law. All the more so if that person represents themselves rather than having an attorney.

And that's actually me.

I assure you, if posting YouTube videos of my daughter playing at playground was something they thought they could use against me, they would have. But they didn't. And I won about the strongest decision you're going to find, and was awarded primary custody.

So yeah, I reject your premise that I have extreme views on this issue.

There are no objective solutions to this kind of "problem". You think is disturbing, other think its not. Whatever solution you purpose, someone will be happy, other will be unhappy.

Well, kind of. One could argue that you can't un ring a bell. Your child can always publish all their childhood stuff if they decide to later on.

> As far as underwear goes, no I wouldn't care if I was under age 3 in the photo.

Clarification, though: I was talking about you-the-adult, not some hypothetical video of you from when you were 3. Maybe you would be ok with that. That's fine. You're an adult and can decide for yourself what you want to post online about yourself. (I personally do not want videos of my 37-year-old self in my underwear on the internet, but that's just me.)

Anyway, as I initially said, I'm not even talking about creeps here. I, personally, as an adult, would not want photos/videos of me as a child floating around on the internet. It's not a matter of embarrassment or safety, it's just that I don't want my life to be public to that degree.

But hey, you can always argue that I'm an adult, and I didn't grow up with always-on internet connectivity (or, really, much in the way of internet connectivity at all until I was in high school), so maybe my opinion doesn't count, because culture and social expectations are different now.

But... they're not, really, at least not universally so. There are people who are children right now who are uncomfortable with this[0]. The linked article also mentions, for balance's sake, some kids who enjoy having a ton of information about them online. But that's the thing: you can always put more information about yourself online, but once it's there, it's very hard (sometimes impossible) to take it back. Parents who share things about their kids online rob them of the agency to decide for themselves how private they want to be. That's just fact, regardless of what you've decided.

[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/02/when-...

> Why do you need to post publicly rather than marking it as unlisted and sharing the link with people you know and trust?

Not always realistic. If you record some boyscouts event, you probably don't know the name of everyone there, let alone account information. People often email a link, and then people share it by forwarding it.

Alternatively, of course, you could upload it to some website for your organization, but again it'd generally need to be public, or you have the usual IT horror of getting everyone an account and dealing with people who say they can't log in. There is a reason people just toss it on YouTube.

unlisted links shared via email are still able to be opened by anyone with a link. They don't show up in recommendations and search results, but they're not private/whitelisted.

> Why do you need to post publicly rather than marking it as unlisted and sharing the link with people you know and trust?

Important point, still kind of weird to me, even in this day and age of Facebook and social media in general, where everyone feels the need to share every intimate detail of their lives with strangers.

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http://pleaserobme.com

I personally think you're missing the point of the article.

The content of your videos (based on the example you gave) are harmless. Adorable, in fact. You have a beautiful daughter - congrats. Sadly you're missing the point that you did the uploading, not her.

The article is about children, I'd say around 11-14 in age on average, possibly late teens too, uploading videos of themselves... themselves. And the videos are adorable videos of them down the park in jeans, they're videos of them in bikinis in their bedrooms. Some of them are videos of them sucking on lollipops... I mean really?

Also, the videos being uploading are flags. They're used to signal to pedophiles: there's other content available outside of this video. They're guiding lights for people who wanted darker content.

Your videos are just your videos, and you moderate them. It's not the same thing at all.

> You have a beautiful daughter - congrats.

Creep!!! Just kidding.... Thanks, she's the best. :)

Point taken. I get a bit defensive here and there, and I guess what I'm more defensive about is reflected more here in the comments, where people are so quick to shame parents for not being so worried about things that I think are non-issues. (note that I am a bit of an outlier at Hacker News, in that I am in general not particularly concerned about privacy...in the sense that I don't worry about, say, Amazon following me around the web because they have figured out that I am in the market for digital pianos and skateboard parts)

> The thing is, even if someone is a perv and gets off on this sort of thing, it isn't endangering her. I'm not going to lose sleep over it.

But... it's a video of her, not of you. Is she going to lose sleep over it if in five years she goes on YouTube and discovers someone has cloned and monetized the video, and a bunch of creeps have commented on it?

Well I'm her parent and I get to make such decisions for now. That's how it works. If I had any concern whatsoever that she might be embarrassed about something I post, I'd take that into consideration, but I'm not.

Someone could video her at a playground, and post it on YouTube. Should I not take her to the playground out of fear of that?

Honestly, I think I'm probably more concerned than most other parents, since they put their daughters in skirts and let them play on the monkeybars, while I tend to dress her in pants when she is going to be doing that sort of thing. But it's probably more out of concern for other dads, who (thanks to all the hand wringing about this sort of thing) tend to feel like everyone is on the lookout for someone who is creepy.

Can I ask why you would make those videos public, instead of private and sharing them with just people you know?

Because a few people subscribe (family and friends), and I put them in a playlist, and so on.

I mean, I don't care. She's just playing at the playground. I didn't think about it at the time, I guess I could, but I don't see why it matters. If I was concerned about anything, it would be about creepy people seeing her in the real world.

Based on that use case, you would probably be better of using a product like Google Photos instead of Youtube, since the latter is more for publicly broadcasting. Just my 2 cents.

Google photos is awful. I do use it (in fact that is where my videos go by default), but sharing stuff isn't a good experience.

If I was worried about the public seeing stuff, I'd just make things unlisted, and sometimes I do.

After reading all of your comments hear, the only image I can form of you is a a guy with his hands over his ears yelling "I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" You need to wise up. Before you read this article, you were naïve like many parents, but now you're just being wilfully ignorant by continuing to defend these videos being public.

> The thing is, even if someone is a perv and gets off on this sort of thing, it isn't endangering her.

Careful with that idea, it's some pretty enablist shit, and you most frequently hear it coming from the perverts themselves.

What matters is if it is wrong or not, not who says it.

Yes, hence the "is enablist shit"...

And no, being lumped in with pedophiles matters. I am trying to warn him who he sounds like, not making a rational argument against his position. It's up to him to decide if he wants to sound like a pedophile.

Well I'm talking about how I prioritize decisions about protecting my own daughter from harm from others, not about whether it is ok for me to look at / think about other people's daughters.

Given that, if I sound like a pedophile, to me that says more about the listener than the speaker.

Probably, but the listener may also be a judge, or the parents of the kids your daughter plays with, or someone else who has a material effect on the quality of your life.

Yup, spent my time in front of judges. Self represented, up against nasty lawyers, solid week long trial. If this was a thing that could be used against me, I assure you, it would have.

It wasn't, and I was awarded primary custody.

Okay cool, how can I get in touch with your ex then and let her know about this conversation?

Not gonna post it here, but contact me rjbrown at gmail and I'll give you her email and her lawyer's email. Knock yourself out.

It's weird how far you're okay with going here, honestly this makes me concerned there's an issue more than your original comment.

All I said was "be careful" and now you're giving me your ex's lawyer's contact info. What a weird escalation!

This can only go badly for you, I hope you realize...