- 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 in some places ends up at covering the faces of women for the exact same reason. Should we forbid children to go to the pool because sexual creeps might go there ?
On the other hand in many places of Northern europe nudity is more common even in public. That works because they don't culturally associate as much nudity with sex as americans or other parts of the world do.. (You'd obviously get beaten up for masturbating in these places especially with children around.). And that doesn't seem like so bad a thing to me
It’s entirely different than standard social standards about clothing and nudity in public.
A prominent example; it's quite the read: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2022-12-18/...
> But it is the suit filed by 11 former members of the Squad that has placed the Piper Rockelle saga at the center of an explosive online controversy. The plaintiffs, all of whom are minors, allege in the lawsuit that Smith offered to show an 11-year-old girl how to perform oral sex, mailed Piper’s underwear to men and pretended to be a raunchy version of the family’s dead cat while inappropriately touching and harassing the children.
> Trimmer, a photographer, said Smith often urged the kids to pose more provocatively for thumbnail photo shoots — the images used to promote YouTube videos. She would frequently tell the Squad members to make ‘sexy kissing faces’ for thumbnails, to ‘push their butts out,’ to ‘suck their stomachs in,’ ‘wear something sluttier’ and would otherwise position Plaintiffs’ bodies in explicitly and sexually suggestive positions,” the complaint said.
> Numerous Squad members also allege that Smith regularly interacted online with a man posing as a young girl named “Megan” who sent her money, a Gucci bag, laptops, lawn furniture and other expensive gifts in exchange for images of Piper. In the lawsuit, Corinne said she witnessed Smith mail “several of Piper’s soiled training bras and panties to an unknown individual,” adding that Smith told her “old men like to smell this stuff.”
They know who the audience is.
This is miles away more horrific.
I'm talking about intentionally filming one's own children for the viewership of creeps online for perpetual consumption in order to make a profit. This would be akin to making one's living by nonconsensually filming nude beach visitors in northern europe for 8 hrs+/day and uploading that online vs someone just visiting a nude beach.
I would be happy with a law forbidding to post public pictures of your underage kids, regardless of skin exposure.
However, the law you are proposing would prohibit a parent from posting an image of their child winning the spelling bee, in a full suit.
I have no idea how to thread this needle, outside making my personal choices.
https://arresteddevelopment.fandom.com/wiki/Milford_School
> Children should be neither seen nor heard.
Surely, kids can be seen in movies, tv shows, news articles about kids competitions or events, etc?
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?
As a society we have settled on the idea that regardless of the emotional development of a minor, they are materially incapable of granting consent since we believe they do not yet the maturity to comprehend it. I know this is a terrible analogy, but alas, this is where I feel the slippery slope leads by centering this debate on the idea of consent. Yes, there is a material difference in the kinds of consent we're dealing with, but I'm not sure if they're all that different.
I think is pretty broad, but do you suggest no depictions of under 16s on any online media? It's one thing to restrict minors from participating on social media, but are you suggesting their likeness cannot appear online posted by other people? Parents? School yearbook? School social club?
I don’t suggest that, but I think it’s pretty bad to post lots of swimsuit pics to social media. And it’s absolutely horrible to accept money in exchange for 1:1 videos or commissioned photos for internet strangers. There’s no legitimate purposes for adults to ask little kids to pose on swimsuits for them. I’m not sure if it should be illegal, but certainly scorned and people who practice to have appropriate levels of opprobrium.
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 protective with them. And here the topic of family-influencer and sexualization of their children is also a hot topic.
https://www.verywellfamily.com/difference-between-baby-newbo...
https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/05/entertainment/spencer-elden-n...
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.
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.
There is at least one picture of me (not on social media, admittedly), as a toddler, buck naked in a pool with another toddler. It was (and still is) and innocent picture even with the visible genitalia. So no, it's not automatically "depravity" to show nude people, even kids.
Don't be mistaken, I'm not for child exploration, stuff like kids beauty pageant, or over-exposed young people are downright creepy, but I'm reacting at the idea of making any representation of kids taboo.
Says you.
> Decades later, Nirvana is still a topic of discussion because of it (and still earning royalties), ...
I think the album's popularity and the royalties aren't solely attributable to the cover :)
> We don't need to exploit children as a form of creative expression...
There is no pornography, no sexual abuse, in fact there's nothing sexual about it at all, and the parents were paid for the photo. Please help me understand how it constitutes exploitation.
If it's really art for the sake of art, art justifying itself, then let it be done for free. I want the monetization of such things banned, because I don't think this is art for the sake of art. I think child modelling is done for the sake of commercial exploitation.
I didn't say that this art cover is such a thing. I attacked your criteria of a "pressing need" with this description, this argument is independent of discussion about this particular cover.
> I want the monetization of such things banned, because I don't think this is art for the sake of art.
I don't think anyone should be able to ban other people from committing voluntary transactions. The band wants to sell the album. I want to buy it. Somebody else's opinions on what is and what isn't art are not relevant to either of us.
Sure, it doesn't solve the problem of child videos using other monetization channels like product placement, sponsorships and so on but don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
If we exempt them from your new rules, why?
We need to be very careful about Well Intentioned rules (or worse, laws) because they will be applied selectively and in ways the authors didn't intend.
Ban the commercialization of videos and images containing kids. No more child actors, singers, models, etc. Remove the child labor law exceptions which have been given to these industries.
it'd make movies better, anyway
If you're posting content to the public (i.e. random strangers), you're on one side of the line. If you're posting content in a controlled manner to people consisting of friends and family you actually know, you're on the other side of the line.
Posting privately for your extended family yes, but that should never be posted publicly.
The issue is trying to ban an innocent thing - photo of a kid in state normally seen in public vs "making kids perform for camera, encourage them children to form participate in parasocial relationships with the audience".
No kid ever build parasocial relationship by having photo in family album, even if public. And photos of kids are as old as photography.
One could make regulations about monetization of such things I guess. Monetization does not just happens randomly. You have to enter into contract with social network to send you money, you fill taxes. That could be workable, theoretically.
It's important to protect the private lives of our children. But it's very challenging to draw clear, enforceable lines in criminal laws and social media terms of service.
Second step, zero public posts involving children, maybe with some narrow carveouts.
"I'm sorry mister, but we can see chidren playing in the park at 44:28 in the hour-long documentary you've produced, so we had to remove the video."
/s
Implementing your proposal is also unreasonable: before one took a photo of their spouse in the park, they would have to clear the background of all persons or get their explicit consent.
If there was a protest outside my business, could I post a photo of the crowd online? What if it were a riot?
What if, as I and a large crowd were peacefully leaving an event, I lifted my camera above my head and blindly took a photo of the mass of people shoulder to shoulder?
Many places have laws which would prevent someone from taking a photo of an individual and selling copies of that photo without the subjects permission; but these laws don't usually apply to someone in the background or a crowd shot, and they don't apply to non-commercial use or some commercial uses, including journalism.
There should be a general blanket ban on parents monetizing their kids. We don't need child actors in movies, most stories can be written to avoid their necessity. And maybe very soon, it should be feasible to replace child actors with CGI.
And this legalized pedophilia industry makes 5 billion dollars a year[3]. Unbelievable.
[1] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kendalltaggart/teen-bea...
[2] https://www.apa.org/pi/women/programs/girls/report
[3] https://truthout.org/articles/child-beauty-pageants-a-scene-...
So maybe access to videos of lightly dressed children, icky as it may feel, lowers the rate of pedophile rape.