It's been a challenge ensuring friends and family don't post stuff about our daughter, but reading this reinforces that we're making the right choice.
It's not that I don't think children are adorable. I'm talking about parents who have a baby and then spend every day posting photos about every event in the child's life. I know 3 people in my relatively small circle who have been posting on behalf of their children for years.
Maybe I'm a freak, but I think there's something seriously messed up with having one's life broadcasted to strangers. I'm not saying that it's bad to include updates about/with one's children occasionally in social media posts, but I think it's wrong to make a child's entire life an open book without their consent.
Worst of all, it's not really about the child. I mean, it kind of is, but it's mostly for the parents to feel good.
Of course their participation is much different than what you're thinking of, but those unknown databases should be part of the calculation.
The problem starts for me with the fact that most of the "friends" people have on sites like Facebook are not actual friends, but acquaintances they might not have seen or talked to again for years. Most of the my "friends" on Facebook have hundreds of "friends", sometimes thousands. For all intents and purposes, most of those people are strangers.
It feels like it massively cheapens actual friendships.
"Followers" isn't much better. Different word, similar implications.
I had never really considered it to be an issue (I have a private account, pictures only get shared with friends family), but thinking more on it- she really should be asked to consent to share it, even if my account is locked down. I've been telling her (for as long as it's relevant) that anything on the internet stays there forever, and we've had talks about privacy when they want to install some cheap knock-off F2P mobile game that wants access to your entire phone, but this is another aspect I need to consider.
Now you've made me wonder if "can I take a photo" carries an implicit "and share them around the world" with it. In hindsight as someone constantly being forced into photos it seems to.
My sister had a baby last year, and she's been posting and sharing photos and videos non-stop.
Recently she asked me if I knew if hackers could break into baby monitor because she was worried some hacker may spy on her sleeping baby... I had a good laugh first, then I felt sad for her.
It's an issue of consent. She's voluntarily sharing specific selected photos & videos with her social peers, a hacked baby monitor would be a violation. The glib dismissal here helps nobody.
Her baby hasn't given consent. Believe you me, there's loads of 'Invasion of Privacy' lawsuits from kids to their parents coming down the pipe over the next decade.
The distinction between sharing specific photos and hacked baby monitor, as pointed out by ianlevesque, is still important and it's wrong to casually dismiss it.
I think it's the same for these kids who have been posted on social media by their parents. Kids get their lives ruined by this type of stuff. The internet has a long memory, and these children are in no way capable of consenting. Yeah it's not Cash Me Outside girl bad but you're still potentially putting still maturing children on display to be potentially mocked by random internet mobs. Forever.
and what did you tell her?
"Baby" gadgets and toys are the most vulnerable. I liked the story where a teddy bear that allowed parents to leave messages was hosting recordings and replies on a public fileserver. You have to get more imaginative to think about who would take advantage of that and why, but its a valid enough answer, especially for a simply "spying" concern.
So, of course I helped them to setup the IP camera in such way that they could use it securely. (VPN, strong encryption on their WiFi, etc)
And of course I also explained them that they should be careful with whom they share the photos.
I'm glad that you are thinking starting from your daughter, and I hope that the pattern continues.
We deliberately didn't tell anyone when my wife went into labour, as she didn't want anyone else there.
Obviously, there are still "leaks", but clearly discussing it with people and explaining why usually is enough. Although we get some strange looks, I explain what I personally can do with just a small dataset, and then people respect it.
I think it's probably the single largest threat to our society, because it's essentially normalizing zero-privacy. I personally think it should be a choice that can be made at 14 or something. I'm a libertarian, but I often think laws to protect children are relatively good. As such, I think a law protecting a child's privacy is probably something we as a society should consider. Implementation would be quite difficult, however.
The problem has more to do with the future adult. My work related to ML has me horrified to think of the future. With enough data about a child (and enough of a training dataset), it should be possible to predict outcomes (political leaning, wealth, death, etc.)
(I do wonder how facial recognition will deal with ex post facto attribution of photos of children, given how our faces change as we age. Up to about age 4 my daughter was nearly indistinguishable from one of her cousins in photos-- a testament to the power of my wife's family's genetics, I guess...)
While you can't prevent everything, I've only asked people to take pics down a couple of times and they've been understanding.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Online_Privacy_Pr...
For me, old enough is "when you can demonstrate meaningful understanding of the negatives of the platform". "I want to because my friends use it" isn't enough. "I want to but I'd only use [Snapchat-style ephemeral data] so people can't make fun of me with it" is much closer, as is "I want to because I want to talk to my friends but I wouldn't connect with people who aren't my friends".
So it's not a hard number, but my guess is that it's going to be about 13, like others have said.