Recently, I posted an a link to an article on Facebook called "Why I Don't Put Pictures of my Kids Online". The article didn't directly speak for me, but made several salient points that I generally agreed with.
When a friend expressed some interest in my position, I told shared the full story, which I will share with you now.
When Allison was born, as an immensely proud new parent, I wanted to share her pictures with everyone we knew. The easiest way to do this would be to put them in some public place online (like this blog). That was certainly easier than sending out mass emails, or sharing passwords to a locked site, or whatever.
Diana pushed back against sharing pictures publicly with a certain amount of vigor. She said things that I didn't really understand at the time, about ownership of your own image and that we should respect Allison's privacy, and things like that. I looked at our newborn baby, and then at my wife, thinking she was clearly crazy. Allison was just a baby! How could she possible know or care if we put her pictures online?! So I attempted to mount a counterargument...
... and I came up with nothing.
I couldn't come up with a single good reason why it was a good idea to publish her baby pictures online. The best reason I could come up with was that it was slightly more convenient for me.
That was kind of sobering.
On the other side of the coin, I could come up with at least a few reasons why it seemed like a bad idea. I'm not actively concerned about child predators, but some people think that's reason enough. I've heard stories of images scraped from blogs and used for commercial purposes. Unlikely, I guess, but possible.
But most importantly, the more I thought about it, the more Diana's original position (or at least my own interpretation of it) started to make sense in my own mind. Allison might not want her pictures online. It took a few years for that to actually make sense.
The idea of a newborn, or even a three year old, making rational decisions about privacy and posting pictures online is obviously ridiculous. As a baby, we made literally every decision in Allison's life. Now, as a three year old, we make the vast majority of decisions for her, but fewer than before. For example, we may decide that she needs to wear a jacket, but she can decide which one. As she gets older, we'll make fewer and fewer decisions, and she'll take more ownership of her own life and choices. That's what growing up is all about.
At some point in time, she'll come to realize what it means to post pictures online for the world to see. And it's possible that she'd come to the realization that we've posted all her pictures, from slobbering baby to awkward teenager, for the entire world to see, and be horrified that we'd done that without her permission(though more likely, she'll say "Gawd, Dad... you're SO lame!"). At the very least, I think it's far more likely that she'd have negative feelings about it than positive ("Gee Dad! I'm so glad you put all these pictures up! You're awesome!").
That doesn't mean that I'm afraid of making unpopular decisions. Far from it. But if she did feel betrayed or embarrassed about it, I'd at least like to have some justification. And that's the entire point... I have none.
When she gets to that age and decides that she wants her baby pictures online, then she can do that. But she's not ready to make those choices yet, so we make it for her, and that answer obviously coincides with our own values.
It's hard to project a little girls feelings forward, so maybe this is a better example: On a whim, you google your own name, and find that I've posted a picture on my blog from a beach party. You're wearing a bathing suit, and it was before you'd dropped 30 pounds. You're eyes are half open, and you're in the middle of taking a bite of cake. Whatever. Suffice to say, you don't think it's a flattering picture. You look again, and realize that this picture has been up publicly for the last five years. Would you care?
The answer to that question is personal. Some people are "open books" and wouldn't care at all. Others are more concerned with image and privacy and might care. Others would be horrified and outraged. It just depends on how you feel about these kinds of things.
My point is we don't know what Allison's views are on the subject yet, so it seems natural to make the choice that is the least likely to be painful, and also the easiest to reverse. (That's the other crazy thing about the internet... Once things are posted online, it's extremely easy to lose control of them. Taking pictures down after they are released might not be as easy as it sounds.)
The "public" part is really actually key. We DO share her pictures privately with friends and family. That might even be hypocritical, given the reasons above, but I'm more prepared to defend a position of "we share pictures of our kids with our friends" than "we share pictures of our kids with everyone in the world."
I fully realize that we are in the vast minority in this opinion. The internet is paved with pictures of your kids and pets. Everyone does it, and here's my guess why:
1) You don't care about your own privacy as much as I care about mine. And you assume your kids won't either. I think this is a personal opinion that everyone makes for themselves.
2) My family is extremely small. It's easy for me to manage sharing pictures privately with just a few people. You might have a audience, so you get more value from having a single place to post pictures. Even if you are somewhat against sharing pictures online, this convenience might sufficiently tip the scale in the other direction.
3) You simply don't think about these kinds of things. I think this is probably the case with most people. They either don't care, or figure they'll deal with that bridge when they get to it, or don't even think it's worth thinking about in the first place.
4) Something else?
So, to sum up.
I can come up with reasons why I'm uncomfortable posting pictures publicly. These reasons might be unlikely, or far fetched, but I don't think they are completely bogus.
I can't come up with any good reasons why I should.
So the choice is pretty clear.
I'm still mounting that argument against Diana, so if you can point out a flaw in my thinking, please let me know!
When a friend expressed some interest in my position, I told shared the full story, which I will share with you now.
When Allison was born, as an immensely proud new parent, I wanted to share her pictures with everyone we knew. The easiest way to do this would be to put them in some public place online (like this blog). That was certainly easier than sending out mass emails, or sharing passwords to a locked site, or whatever.
Diana pushed back against sharing pictures publicly with a certain amount of vigor. She said things that I didn't really understand at the time, about ownership of your own image and that we should respect Allison's privacy, and things like that. I looked at our newborn baby, and then at my wife, thinking she was clearly crazy. Allison was just a baby! How could she possible know or care if we put her pictures online?! So I attempted to mount a counterargument...
... and I came up with nothing.
I couldn't come up with a single good reason why it was a good idea to publish her baby pictures online. The best reason I could come up with was that it was slightly more convenient for me.
That was kind of sobering.
On the other side of the coin, I could come up with at least a few reasons why it seemed like a bad idea. I'm not actively concerned about child predators, but some people think that's reason enough. I've heard stories of images scraped from blogs and used for commercial purposes. Unlikely, I guess, but possible.
But most importantly, the more I thought about it, the more Diana's original position (or at least my own interpretation of it) started to make sense in my own mind. Allison might not want her pictures online. It took a few years for that to actually make sense.
The idea of a newborn, or even a three year old, making rational decisions about privacy and posting pictures online is obviously ridiculous. As a baby, we made literally every decision in Allison's life. Now, as a three year old, we make the vast majority of decisions for her, but fewer than before. For example, we may decide that she needs to wear a jacket, but she can decide which one. As she gets older, we'll make fewer and fewer decisions, and she'll take more ownership of her own life and choices. That's what growing up is all about.
At some point in time, she'll come to realize what it means to post pictures online for the world to see. And it's possible that she'd come to the realization that we've posted all her pictures, from slobbering baby to awkward teenager, for the entire world to see, and be horrified that we'd done that without her permission(though more likely, she'll say "Gawd, Dad... you're SO lame!"). At the very least, I think it's far more likely that she'd have negative feelings about it than positive ("Gee Dad! I'm so glad you put all these pictures up! You're awesome!").
That doesn't mean that I'm afraid of making unpopular decisions. Far from it. But if she did feel betrayed or embarrassed about it, I'd at least like to have some justification. And that's the entire point... I have none.
When she gets to that age and decides that she wants her baby pictures online, then she can do that. But she's not ready to make those choices yet, so we make it for her, and that answer obviously coincides with our own values.
It's hard to project a little girls feelings forward, so maybe this is a better example: On a whim, you google your own name, and find that I've posted a picture on my blog from a beach party. You're wearing a bathing suit, and it was before you'd dropped 30 pounds. You're eyes are half open, and you're in the middle of taking a bite of cake. Whatever. Suffice to say, you don't think it's a flattering picture. You look again, and realize that this picture has been up publicly for the last five years. Would you care?
The answer to that question is personal. Some people are "open books" and wouldn't care at all. Others are more concerned with image and privacy and might care. Others would be horrified and outraged. It just depends on how you feel about these kinds of things.
My point is we don't know what Allison's views are on the subject yet, so it seems natural to make the choice that is the least likely to be painful, and also the easiest to reverse. (That's the other crazy thing about the internet... Once things are posted online, it's extremely easy to lose control of them. Taking pictures down after they are released might not be as easy as it sounds.)
The "public" part is really actually key. We DO share her pictures privately with friends and family. That might even be hypocritical, given the reasons above, but I'm more prepared to defend a position of "we share pictures of our kids with our friends" than "we share pictures of our kids with everyone in the world."
I fully realize that we are in the vast minority in this opinion. The internet is paved with pictures of your kids and pets. Everyone does it, and here's my guess why:
1) You don't care about your own privacy as much as I care about mine. And you assume your kids won't either. I think this is a personal opinion that everyone makes for themselves.
2) My family is extremely small. It's easy for me to manage sharing pictures privately with just a few people. You might have a audience, so you get more value from having a single place to post pictures. Even if you are somewhat against sharing pictures online, this convenience might sufficiently tip the scale in the other direction.
3) You simply don't think about these kinds of things. I think this is probably the case with most people. They either don't care, or figure they'll deal with that bridge when they get to it, or don't even think it's worth thinking about in the first place.
4) Something else?
So, to sum up.
I can come up with reasons why I'm uncomfortable posting pictures publicly. These reasons might be unlikely, or far fetched, but I don't think they are completely bogus.
I can't come up with any good reasons why I should.
So the choice is pretty clear.
I'm still mounting that argument against Diana, so if you can point out a flaw in my thinking, please let me know!
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