Parents Beware of what you Share

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It is almost a natural instinct for parents to share their children on social media. According to this article, many parents may not know they could be putting their children in danger.
Hashtags are great in many ways for social media. Overall, they make posts easier to find. This is great for helping a company look for posts about their event or even helping someone find posts about corgis. On the other hand, this can also help a pedophile find images of children.
That is correct.  Pretend you are a parent giving your child a bath. You snap a picture because you think your child looks cute. You post the picture on social media with the caption, “Splash, splash. Just taking a bath! #bathtime.” All a pedophile has to do is search #bathtime, and the photo of your child could come to view.
The Child Rescue Coalition seeks to educate parents about overexposing their children on social media. To do so, the coalition started the Kids for Privacy Campaign. Through this campaign, the Child Rescue Coalition encourages parents to post pictures of their children holding signs which say, “privacy please.” They want parents to be aware how easy predators and sex offenders could obtain and misuse photos of their children. They also want parents to understand their children have the right to privacy.
Personally, I am not a parent, but the thought of pedophiles being able to easily obtain photos of children on social media scares me. My brother and sister love to share photos of their children. They may not use hashtags, but I fear those photos may still be in danger. Therefore, I am glad the Child Rescue Coalition is acting and spreading awareness of this issue.
I could say parents should stop posting pictures of their children all together, but I know that would be unreasonable. As long as the child is decent in the photo, I do not see any violation of privacy. Therefore, I believe the best way for parents to take action is by making their accounts private. Also, parents should set their settings to where only friends and/or followers can view their posts. Last, parents should avoid hashtags with photos of their children.
I am very thankful the Child Rescue Coalition is spreading awareness of this issue. Honestly, it is sad this is a danger we must avoid but with knowledge of this threat, parents will know to take precautions.

Comments

  1. UnknownApril 9, 2018 at 9:04 PM

    Crystal,
    I honestly had never thought about this, but I can definitely see the issue behind it. The internet is a powerful thing, and sometimes people abuse the fact that they have nearly unlimited information accessible at their finger tips. The fact that activism is beginning for issues like this to prevent the wrong people seeing what is initially an innocent post from a proud parent is very important. I agree that it is better to keep your accounts on social media private, and to watch who you allow to view posts with content as potentially sensitive as this.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Duggan TrenaryApril 9, 2018 at 11:40 PM

    As with most things in this world there are people who will use them for harm and bad things. So, it is important to always think before you post anything. I think it is important to get messages like this out to people, you do not want to blindly trust that everyone will use applications in the way they are intended.

    ReplyDelete

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