Comment by tmoravec | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tmoravec | Hacker News Reader

Folks, can I ask about your opinion on one particular case of child photos on social media?

Imagine a semi-pro photographer, focusing on childhood photography. The photos are of course not any candid moments, celebrating the kids birthdays or sharing their lives. It’s staged, often with professional lights, heavily Photoshopped, etc. Telling a “story” rather than showing the photographed person - they are basically actors. Clearly, FB et al. would be great for finding clients, or just sharing the work with people who enjoy this kind of art.

Do you think it’s OK to post such images, provided the parents’ give their consent? Do you think it’s OK to post such images of the photographer’s own kids?

EDIT: Should have mentioned that there's no reason to link the models' identity on social media. It's not captioned as "Picture of David Oberon, 6yo from Seattle" but rather "Picture of a little inventor, working on a cool new machine".

It’s a gray area imo, there is no way of obtaining meaningful consent from those children, even if they are your own, but in the same vein the photographs are presumably one-off and not strongly associated with their identity as they grow, causing the privacy aspect to almost become a non-issue in the long term.

Cool, thanks for the response. Good catch about the privacy aspect becoming less of an issue long-term. I’ll be thinking about that.

IMO it is not OK because there are long lasting implications (some creepy dude comes to mind, but I digress) that could impact their lives well past childhood. And as a child they cannot properly consent, and I do not trust parents to look out for their kids best interests. It would seem history has supported this theory with lots of anecdotes haha. Again, just my 2c.

What about movies and TV? Obviously there are a lot of messed up child actors. Should all characters be played by adults at least 18 years old?

Great point, and ya that is a tough one. I will have to think on this but obviously the initial answer is no. I hate more regulation but I think protecting kids from enterprising parents is important.

Even if you accept that idea, 18 is a bit much. A 14 year old for example can meaningfully consent to being an actor in a movie I think.

I mean, I never got why this is supposedly the one situation where child labor is seen as acceptable in the first place.

We have CGI now.

Interesting about parents not being trustworthy to look out for their kids best interest. If not parents, who is?

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