and how to tread carefully By Andrew Muir, Founder of Momatu
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larming statistics show that more than 80% of children have an online presence before the age of two, and the average child has almost 1,500 images of them posted online before their fifth birthday –– yikes!
While social media is a wonderful way to share your child’s special moments with friends and family, many parents forget that these people won’t necessarily be the only ones who are privy to them. For this reason, it’s no wonder that experts are increasingly cautioning parents against “sharenting”, a term to describe parents who incessantly share posts and photos of their children to social media.
of parents that were cited in the report were the risk of images they posted being used in a sexual nature, or for the purpose of stalking and even kidnapping. It goes without saying that most people have good intentions when sharing images of their children online. And let’s face it, we all want to celebrate and share our children’s proudest and more precious moments with those closest to us. What we need to keep in mind though is that sharing these on social media means that the hundreds of ‘friends’ (and their friends, and friends of friends) that we’ve accumulated over the years are also often able to view them.
A recent report by OFCOM in the UK found that while many parents do share images of their children online, 56% of parents don’t. Of these non-sharers, 87% said they actively chose not to in order to protect their child’s privacy. In addition to privacy, common concerns
This is not to say that people should stop posting photos of their kids altogether, but rather that they should be aware of the risks in doing so, and take any reasonable step they can to ensure they are protecting their children’s privacy online.
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Peninsula Kids – Autumn 2019
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