Sharing your Children on Social Media

Recently, there have been a lot of discussions around children being posted on social media accounts for anyone to see. Since this is a relatively unexplored area of child safety and mental health, I will use this article to discuss the situation and how to best approach the future.

Tik-Tok is a relatively new platform that has recently been at the center of this debate- children and their viewers. There are several instances of parent-run accounts that have videos of children and babies as the primary source of content. These parents can make millions of dollars per month by posting several videos per day with their children. They will often script certain skits to show their audience or film mundane aspects of their day (cooking, getting dressed, packing for a trip, etc.) “Fans” of these children will watch all of these videos and often become attached to these very real toddles and kids- as they might to an actor or band. 

These parents who film videos of their kids very likely do not wish any harm for their children whatsoever. Many content creators have done videos during this time explaining how they came to be in this position- and many of these people are single parents who use social media to afford to care for their children, and otherwise couldn’t. There are many reasons these accounts came to be, and I would bet that none of them started off with the idea of child exploitation in mind. 

Unfortunately, social media and the internet is entirely public and allows for everything on it to become exposed. Tik-Tok is a video app that shares videos made to any user on the app without any discretion. Sometimes, a video posted by a new user with no followers can end up on Tik-Tok’s main page where hundreds of millions of people will see it. There are no permissions or rights to any of the videos posted- anything can be shared and none of that is trackable.

Innocent videos posted of children can unfortunately be seen by people with bad intentions. It has come to light that videos of children in the bath, eating certain things, dressing certain ways, doing certain physical activity, etc- are often “saved” for rewatching and downloaded by  millions of people who have no real-life connection to these babies. These videos unfortunately can end up on inappropriate websites and even lead to stalking. In previous generations, videos like these were recorded with a handheld camera and saved to VHS- only viewable by the family and unshareable. Nowdays anything recorded is saved by entities such as iCloud, Snapchat, Facebook, etc.- and we have no idea who has access to them.

A slightly more disturbing instance is a mother who sells  video meet and greets of her 2 year old daughter to strangers on the internet. These strangers can purchase individual time via camera chatting with this two year old girl, and her mother facilitates the exchange. She claims it is so her “fans” can get the opportunity to meet her. When this activity was first exposed, they identified that 95% of the people who booked “meet-and-greets” with the toddler were middle-aged men. Her accounts have not yet been shut down as this is not explicitly illegal at this point.
Children are not allowed to hold jobs for a reason. Once they become a certain age, they can work very limited hours on a limited schedule for their families only. Even 15 year olds have tight work restrictions in place to keep them safe from exploitation. 

Yet, children are now making millions of dollars per year through their social media accounts. Sometimes the child is running the accounts, sometimes the parent handles the accounts but films the child on a daily basis using scripted routines and concepts in order to get the most money they can. This activity is not yet considered a job- so there are no limits in the amount of time a child can be forced to participate in filming. Children receive brand deals from sponsors that their parents collect the money from. Most of these children are now “homeschooled” so they can devote more time to their “platforms” without schedule constraints.

There are many issues with children being involved in money-making platforms- both due to the risk of exploitation and being overworked. We as a society have not figured out how to create healthy boundaries for these children yet, but there are some things we can do to keep our kids and others safe. For the kids we see online, reporting videos we find inappropriate can help get them taken down. If our friends or family members post pictures or videos of their kids or yours that you are uncomfortable with- have a discussion with them.

I think the best compromise is to post your children both mindfully and thoughtfully. Instead of sharing embarrassing stories that their friends in middle school could someday find- consider sending the story in a text to a couple of friends and family members. Instead of taking naked bath pictures- take the picture of  your child covered fully in bubbles or by a towel, and send to a few friends. Limit the amount your children appear on your media platforms and be aware of who your audience is. 

This growing generation of young Gen-Z and Gen-Alpha children will be the first set of kids growing up entirely surrounded by technology and social platforms that can save every aspect of their lives in utero and beyond. We must proceed with caution for the sake of their mental health, privacy, and safety until we can safely create guidelines.

Kyndal Sims

Birch Psychology