If you haven’t yet heard of the term, “sharenting” if you’re in any form of social media, you’ll understand what it means once you hear the definition. Sharenting is when parents over-share the lives of their children online. Furthermore, Facebook is the prime offender of such sharenting moments, and although parents are doing so innocently it sometimes puts their child at risk to online predators. For instance, one mom put photos of her daughter online, and later she found that her child’s photos were on a child porn website.
In addition, digital kidnapping is a real fear and concern parents should have when posting online photos of their children. Although experts state that digital kidnapping is the worst-case scenario, it does happen. Experts say that parents that feel less alone are the ones that often use forms of social media to work through parenting issues, so they have a form of support. Although parents do post about a lot of topics, the following are the ones that are used more frequently:
• Kids and sleeping
• Nutrition and eating
• Discipline and children
• Daycare/preschool
• Behavior issues
Many moms state that due to this day in age, if your child is up sick at 3am there’s nothing better to do than post on Facebook. In general, experts agree that general posting to Facebook does not put a child at risk, but adding photos need more thought and consideration. For example, birthday posts give cyber-criminals a child’s date of birth. In addition, posting photos with something that may identify the location is risky as well such as notable landmarks, address numbers, or mail in the background pictures.
If a cyber-criminal or social media platform has harmed you or your child, the experienced St. Louis personal injury attorneys at Meyerkord & Kurth would like to speak to you. Please contact us today for a free consultation regarding your child safety issue.