Sarah Harte: Are parents unwittingly exploiting their children on social media?

Regularly posting images and videos of our children online infringes their privacy and dignity and can leave them exposed to the darker forces of the internet

The broad consensus seems to be that TikTok aggressively harvests data with extremely limited data protection in China, which arguably leaves children on the frontline of the internet. Picture: AP /Rick Rycroft

Rarely a day goes by without something in the news about TikTok. Multiple countries are investigating its privacy practices, with the US considering a total ban on the app that is wildly popular amongst young people.

There may be geopolitical forces at play between China and the USA, but the broad consensus seems to be that TikTok aggressively harvests data with extremely limited data protection in China, which arguably leaves children on the frontline of the internet. 

One Republican has recently compared TikTok to “digital fentanyl”. 

Last week, Emily Taylor, the editor of the UK Journal of Cyber Policy wrote that we need to have a mature debate on how to effectively regulate TikTok without effecting an outright ban. 

She conceded, however, the urgent necessity of protecting young TikTok users from addiction to the app, with excessive use impacting mental health and in particular causing harmful body-image anxiety.

It's not headline news to any of us that the online world is at the heart of many children’s lives, with the collection of their data beginning early in their lives. It stands to reason that grown-ups must help young people manage this process and protect their rights.

But what if it is parents who are exposing the children by sharing images and videos of their offspring online?

The French seem to be ahead in regulating parental sharing of online images of children or what is sometimes referred to as ‘sharenting’ (a contraction of the words parenting and sharing).

In March, a new French bill, currently on its first reading before the French Senate, was introduced to deal with the infringement of the privacy of minors regarding online image sharing. 

This applies to all parents who share images of their children online and not just to so-called ‘influencer parents’, who turn their children’s childhoods into content.

The first of its kind in the world, it has been welcomed by child psychologists and social media experts. It aims to make parents responsible for the privacy rights of their children, who cannot consent to their images being uploaded online.

In extreme cases of problematic image sharing, a family law judge may intervene, assume partial parental rights, and prevent the sharing of images of a child. Any such law in Ireland would have to be framed differently because of the strong protection given to the authority of the family in the Constitution.

Ethical issues

Nonetheless, sharing images of children on social media brings both ethical issues and safety concerns, because what may be legal may not be ethical.

The last report of a National Survey of Children, their Parents, and Adults regarding Online Safety threw up some interesting facts.

Thirty nine per cent of parents admitted to sharing between one and nine items of their children including photos and videos in the previous month. Younger parents shared more, and mothers shared more than fathers.

The most common reason given for sharing children’s content online was “to keep in touch with family and friends”, with 28% of parents reporting they did not see anything much to worry about when sharing photos of their children online.

A statistic that gives pause for thought is that the French MP Bruno Studer, who proposed the new French bill, says 50% of the photographs of children exchanged on porn sites were lifted from photos unwittingly posted by parents on their social media accounts.

Some commentators have argued that this statistic is out of date, coming from an Australian study that is years old, but experts agree there is a significant risk to posting an image online because you can’t control where the image goes or how it is distributed. If a photo you post on social media has ‘likes’ or ‘shares’, it can go halfway around the globe.

Parental influencers

Parental influencers who use TikTok and other social media platforms as marketing channels are arguably in a separate category from a parent who shares milestones with family and friends. 

One estimate is that there are about 39,000 influencers in Ireland, with some of the top influencers being parents who share online images and videos of their offspring.

The idea of kids as mini hustlers or tastemakers is distasteful to some although there may be a generational aspect to this.

And while globally a growing number of influencer parents (most of whom are women) are beginning to reconsider where and how often they share images of their kids online, a phalanx continues with the practice saying their children enjoy it.

Leaving aside that a child’s consent is illusory by virtue of their lack of capacity, it seems highly unlikely that tiny kids become influencers without intervention or prodding from parents.

Naturally, sharing ‘fun’ images online of a child, for sponsored posts is not the same as sending a child up a chimney, or into a factory, but it raises questions about child labour.

The French have also addressed this problem. In 2020, a new French law regulated the work of child influencers like child models or child actors, preventing parents from exploiting them and controlling the hours they work. There are no such laws in Ireland.

At the heart of measures like this is a debate about a child’s privacy. Article 16 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child gives a child a right to privacy both online and offline.

However, there would seem to be a broader philosophical question of how we view our children. The consensus by historians is that by the middle of the 18th century, the child began to be recognised as having individual needs from adults.

In a digital age, perhaps we need to remind ourselves of the fact that however proud we may be of our children, they are not mini extensions of us. And online exposure to which they don’t consent may humiliate them and leave them open to cyberbullying down the line.

When daily, mental health professionals tell us to limit young people’s social media use, it’s hard to see the rationale for pushing children into the digital landscape. Also, children who routinely see photos or images of themselves online will see it as the norm.

Sharing intimate images

Last month, a senior garda told this newspaper there is a worrying rise in young people sharing intimate or nude images on their mobile phones and urged parents to become more vigilant about what is being shared.

In March a new Media Commission under the Online Safety Act was signed into law. It will update the regulatory framework for video-sharing platform services and social media taking measures to protect users, in particular young people from harmful content including cyberbullying. This is part of an international trend to legally regulate social media which lagged behind social media use.

We could say the internet outran us, we didn’t know its darker implications, and digital mores were underdeveloped, but now we do. Responsible online behaviour as parents begins in our own digital backyard. At the very least we should try to model healthy online behaviour.

And there’s a line between sharing and oversharing. Children have a right to privacy and dignity as human beings. After all, we don’t own them.