Safety Changes I’m Making to How I Post Photos of Children on Social Media
Learning About Kids Social Media Photo Safety
I have recently been on quite a journey of learning more about online photo safety. I have been immersing myself in trying to understand both the benefits & the risks of sharing personal photos & information online. The topic has become very interesting to me as both (A) a proud mother with a desire to share the cute & funny things that my kids do with others and as (B) a photographer who loves to share my photography portfolio online for marketing purposes & as an outlet for my creative work. (I’m proud of my beautiful clients! 😍) However, what I have been learning is definitely changing the way I think about what I choose to share online, especially in regards to what I post that includes children.
My Photo Sharing Journey on Social Media
Generally speaking, I have always been a relatively open book on social media, because that is just a part of my personality. I feel most connected to others when they share authentically with me and I feel most known when I am able to share honestly about myself as well. And that is still an aspect of who I am that I don’t intend to shut down. However, in light of what I’m learning about the potential risks of posting photos of children on the internet & social media, I have begun to make changes to how & what I share.
I’ve had an Instagram account since 2012 and a Facebook since I was about 14 years old. I have also used Twitter & Pinterest, but Instagram is currently my most actively used social media app. My Instagram initially started out as a private account intended for sharing ~socially~ with friends & family, but then as I started to market my business online, I changed my account settings to public and continued to share openly about both my personal life & my business. And actually, from a business marketing perspective, I’ve always been very pro keeping social media social. I actually spoke on this exact topic at a few small business workshops, encouraging business owners & entrepreneurs to showcase the faces behinds their businesses. I encouraged them to not only showcase the service or product they had to offer, but highlight the blood, sweat, & tears that go into them. To let people into their personal world a little bit. To humanize their brand & teach people to know, like, & trust them.
So, with that as my mindset & being a relatively open person, when we started having kids, I naturally just started sharing about them on social media, too. From pregnancy announcements to birth announcements, and then everything after that - daily activities, milestones, funny things that they say & do, first day of school pics, photos at the pumpkin patch & the Christmas tree farm & at the beach, I shared all the things most parents share very casually these days. I honestly didn’t think much of sharing our (their) lives on social media because I was a proud mom & found a lot of joy in sharing all their cute & funny & memorable moments with others. I also enjoyed the connections & solidarity I found with other moms as we related over similar moments. I have also found that sharing about my experience with motherhood & running a business has helped me connect with other “working moms” & helped clients hiring me to know where I am coming from.
What I’ve Been Learning Lately That Has Been Changing My Perspective on How I Share
While I have found social media to be beneficial to me in several ways, as I mentioned, recently I have become aware of several risks & possible negative outcomes that can come along with sharing photos of kids online. It’s been eye-opening to say the least. Of course these risks have varying degrees of likelihood & impact, but now that I know the possibilities, I can’t move forward using social media the same way I have in the past with a clear conscience. I explained some of these potential risks in more detail on this blog, but I’ll list a few here to give some background on WHY I’m making the changes that I’ll share about in the next section of this bog.
Potential Risks of Sharing Photos of Children Online:
First and foremost, the internet is forever. Anything you’ve ever posted online, even if deleted, is not guaranteed to disappear.
Children who are not old enough to consent to what is shared of them online when they’re young may greatly resent what was shared without their permission when they grow up. (Regardless of how positive the intentions were when it was shared.)
What might be funny or cute to us as parents, could potentially be embarrassing to our children.
Children can feel violated when people they don’t know personally and haven’t disclosed information to personally still seem to know everything about their personal life.
There are still several unknowns regarding how what we post of our children now could impact their future - relationships, education, job opportunities, etc.
The words we speak over our children matter & influence what they believe about themselves & when we speak words over them publicly on the internet, there is no taking them back…
It is predicted that our children will face more issues with identity fraud than ever before because of the personal identifying information we have casually offered up about them online - for many of us since before they were even born.
People with ill intentions can & have used photos of children on fetish social media accounts, child sexual abuse material (formerly known as child porn) websites, and role play social media accounts. (This is obviously the most heinous & horrible of the risks I’ve mentioned so far…)
Like I mentioned, if you want to learn more about these potential risks, you can check out this blog.
The Social Media Changes I Am Making for Kids’ Safety
But first let me preface:
I am in NO way perfect & I am always learning. These changes I’m making are not complete and are not without exceptions. If you feel like I am missing something vital or don’t agree with what I share, that’s okay. And, I’d actually love to have a gracious & respectful dialogue with you about this. Feel free to email me here!
I do not intend for any of what I share to shame other people who are using social media differently than I am. Up until just recently, I was using social media VERY differently than I intend to moving forward. My goal in sharing what I am learning as a mom & photographer is to be a resource to others who are exploring online photo safety for their kids & wrestling with what changes they might want to make as well.
I will be continuing to utilize a public social media account for business purposes, so I will likely be approaching all of this with more caution than I would if I had a private social media account for only personal reasons. (Though a private account is not 100% secure either…)
Here are some guidelines I’ll be using to direct me in what I share on social media moving forward both in regard to the safety of my children and my clients’ children.
Only share photos of clients’ children with consent.
When clients book a photo session with me, they are sent a contract beforehand to sign that allows me the right to publish photos from their session online. If they don’t feel comfortable with the contract, I am completely open to adjusting based off of their preferences. Some photographers make clients pay an additional fee if they aren’t able to use their photos for marketing purposes, but that will never be the case at Suzy Collins Photography.
Only share content that honors.
My sincere hope is that this has always been communicated by me. And likely, I have considered this much more for my clients than I have for my own children. Personally, we are a family that loves to laugh at ourselves & embarrass each other. We are goofy people. We don't take things too seriously, BUT I want to be cautious about which of those moments I choose to share on my public social media account. While I value authenticity & "keeping it real" on social media, that should never come at the cost of oversharing about those I care about. Could this content one day be embarrassing to my kids or reflect poorly on them? Questions like these are important for me to consider. The same goes for my clients’ children.
Do not reveal personal identifying information.
For safety purposes, I will intentionally avoid sharing information that reveals home addresses, school names, birth dates, or other identifying information of that nature.
Do not use specific geotagging.
Instead of using specific geotagging like park names & neighborhoods, I will intentionally choose to use broader locations like "Knoxville, TN" as a simple measure to prioritize both mine & my clients’ children’s safety.
Protect the innocence of children.
As a protective measure, I will not share photos of babies in diapers, during bath time, or other potentially vulnerable situations, etc. I have taken absolutely precious photos like this of my own children and of my clients’ children during in-home photo sessions that are innocent & sweet memories! But I will not be sharing photos of this nature publicly on social media moving forward. (Maybe I will reserve these photos for embarrassing my own kids at their wedding & fun stuff like that. 😉)
Avoid tagging photos or using names.
This is another simple precaution in protecting the identities of my clients’ children online. Tagging is a widely accepted practice & using names is second nature to "storytelling" for me, but this feels like a step in a positive direction.
My clients can OF COURSE tag themselves in photos if they would like to! 😊I will leave that option up to them.
ALWAYS LEARNING
I can’t emphasize enough that I still have so much to learn. I don’t want to shy away from inconvenient truths, but instead always keep an open mind to learning how I can better protect my family & my clients. That is ultimately my heart behind all of this & I hope you can see that shining through!
If you’re looking for some ideas on how you can start posting more safely online, here is a blog about some changes you can make today!