My social media feeds are filled with pictures and videos from friends and strangers of their kids. I see proud parents posting milestones of their child as they grow from month to month. I see photos of fun outfits for toddlers that make them look like the cool kid at school. And I see countless videos of children speaking gibberish, hugging dogs and napping in adorable positions. You know, kid stuff.
There’s a part of me that wants to participate, to show the world the cute things my child does or says. However, a photo, video or any kind of status update posted publicly online is no longer within my control. Almost every US citizen uses the internet, according to the Pew Research Center, so if I post that material publicly, I might as well be mailing it to everyone in the US. I don’t trust many people to begin with, so there’s no way I’d trust the millions of people in the US, let alone the billions of people in the world, with images and information about my child.
While my wife and I have time to figure out some details about raising our kid, we’ve already decided we don’t want to post publicly about our child online until they’re old enough to understand what is being posted and consent to it. And if we do post about them, the post won’t include their face and it will have as little personal information as possible.
I spoke to a handful of experts to better understand the phenomenon of parents posting pics and videos of their kids online, the dangers that can arise from this practice, and what you can do instead.
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What is sharenting?
Parents posting about their children online is called «sharenting,» a portmanteau of the words «sharing» and «parenting.» According to a 2024 study published in the Italian Journal of Pediatrics, about 75% of parents posted content related to their child or children online.
Examples of sharenting include sharing a birth announcement, posting your child’s report card or posting a photo of your child on the first day of school.
While sharenting can come from a place of joy and love, it can have negative consequences for both children and parents alike.
Good intentions aren’t good enough
Dr. Susan Albers, a clinical psychologist at the Cleveland Clinic, told me that it’s common for parents to want to post online about their children in a well-intentioned way.
«They’re very proud of their kids. They want to connect with other parents. They want some help or information,» Albers said.
I get it. My parents have a lot of photos of my sister and me throughout our lives hung on the walls of their home. From graduations to weddings and everything in between. Posting online might feel like an extension of hanging photos on your walls, or even a more economical alternative if you don’t own your home.
According to a 2018 report by the UK’s Children’s Commissioner, parents on average post about 71 photos and 29 videos of their children every year. That means by the time a child is heading to high school, their parents could have posted about 1,000 photos, as well as 400 videos, of them.
This isn’t just affecting school-age children either. According to a 2023 European Pediatric Association report, about 92% of toddlers living in the US have an online presence by the time they are 2 years old.
These posts may not be malicious in nature. Parents share them because they are probably proud of their baby for taking their first steps, or they want to connect with others. No matter how well-intentioned, some posts can compromise a child’s data in serious ways.
Posting can be detrimental to a child’s life
Leah Plunkett, Meyer Research Lecturer on Law with Harvard Law School, is the author of the book Sharenthood: Why We Should Think Before We Talk about Our Kids Online, which looks at the ways parents, grandparents and other adults in a child’s life can impact a child’s privacy.
Plunkett said she decided to look into sharenting while scrolling Facebook after becoming a new parent in the early 2010s.
«I just had this moment of, this feels a little weird to me,» she said. What Plunkett found while working on the book was that adults can digitally transmit a lot of a child’s private information, including a child’s full name, date of birth, geographic location and images.
For example, if you write a newborn’s name and birthdate in a caption, that gives away two pieces of data about them. If you add a geo-tag to a picture, you could be giving people information about where your child frequently visits, or at the very least the city or town where they live. And posting a video of your child enjoying a snack could tell others what foods your child likes and dislikes. While some of this information might not seem harmful, it all depends on who has the data — and how much of it they have.
«People can start to see very quickly what a child looks like, where they live, where they go to school, what they like, what they dislike, and [people] can really start to get a sense of the profile of the child,» Plunkett said.
It might feel good as a parent to publicly share family moments or cute interactions online, but these posts can lead to some real harms that might not be immediately recognizable.
The potential dangers of sharenting
Publicly posting information about your child at any age still has risks, just like the dangers you or I face when posting a photo or information about ourselves. Some of the biggest risks lie with AI and altered images, emotional harm and identity theft.
AI and deepfakes
A relatively new danger children face online concerns artificial intelligence and deepfakes. Deepfakes are videos, images and audio that are created using artificial intelligence to appear real. The more posts and images there are of a child, especially public posts, the greater the risk.
According to the AI-detection company Reality Defender, some deepfake tools are user-friendly, fairly accessible and can create a deepfake in 30 seconds.
Deepfakes pose a great risk for children, who are susceptible to dangerous online practices like grooming, cyberbullying and child sexual abuse material.
«[Generative AI] technology enables the creation of fake imagery, including synthetic media, digital forgery, and nude images of children, through tools like ‘nudify’ apps,» the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children wrote in a blog post. «Offenders have even leveraged GAI in sextortion cases, using explicit AI-generated imagery to coerce children into providing additional content or money.»
I spoke to Nathalie Maréchal, the co-director of the Privacy and Data Project at the Center for Democracy and Technology, about these abusive deepfakes.
«We know that people use video or images of kids that they find on the internet to make child abuse imagery,» Marechal said. «The idea that there could be those kinds of images with your child’s face is really distressing. That’s a harm I don’t think any parent would want to risk.»
According to an American Academy of Pediatrics blog post, if a child is the victim of AI-generated, image-based sexual abuse, they may feel violated, humiliated and shame, and they may blame themselves. If those images are then circulated to other children, the trauma could be amplified and in some cases lead to bullying, self-harm and suicidal ideation. And children may not reach out — or be able to reach out — for help in such situations.
«Being portrayed in a deepfake can instill fear of not being believed by others, intensifying barriers to help-seeking,» the AAP wrote.
Psychological and emotional harm
Sharenting can cause children other forms of emotional and psychological distress.
Albers said she sees teenagers deal with these negative consequences. Teens might be embarrassed by something their parents posted online, which could lead them to be bullied at school, she said.
Albers also said that when parents share these posts of their children, what they might not realize is that they are creating an image or expectation of who their child is.
«Sometimes there’s a lot of pressure for the child to live up to this image,» she said. «It can really damage a child’s self-esteem.»
Identity theft
Identity theft negatively affects a child’s future financial stability. This usually happens in two forms, according to PNC Bank.
First, someone might steal a child’s identity outright. Parents may post a child’s full name, date of birth and even Social Security Number online, making it easy for people to assume that identity.
Alternatively, a malicious actor could take pieces of a child’s actual information and combine it with other information, like a fake home address. This results in a wholly fabricated identity that could also financially hurt your child.
«Negative credit information tied to the child’s Social Security number creates credit-related obstacles later in their life,» Trevor Buxton, fraud communications manager at PNC, stated in a blog post. «Unknown negative credit information may impede a child’s ability to obtain a lease on his first apartment, find employment or secure student loans.»
While my wife and I wouldn’t post our child’s sensitive information — like their SSN — online, all of these possible consequences are enough to deter me from posting any of our child’s information on social media until they are old enough to have their own social media account.
Parents, you’re still in control of how you post about your child
According to the European Pediatric Association, sharenting through social media is relatively low risk if children aren’t identifiable in those posts. But there are a few things you can do to minimize that risk even more.
Not posting is the safest option
Not posting about your child online might be the easiest way to keep them out of harm’s way. This option has worked out pretty well for my CNET colleague Attila Tomaschek. He said he doesn’t want to risk any of his child’s personal information falling into malicious hands.
«It’s my responsibility to establish the proper guardrails to protect her privacy and safety from being put at risk online,» Tomaschek said. «I’m not taking any chances with letting a photo of my daughter get out into the wild and wind up in the wrong hands.»
Tomaschek said he doesn’t think his child is old enough to consent to having information or photos posted online about them, and he doesn’t want to betray their trust.
«My daughter is the most important person in the world to me — she’s not a piece of content to be shared online for likes or followers,» he said.
Share photos directly
If you choose not to post about your child on social media, that doesn’t mean you can’t share photos of your kids with friends and family. Thorin Klosowski, a security and privacy activist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said parents or guardians can always send photos via a group chat with family members.
«I’m an uncle so that’s how we share photos with the family,» Klosowski said. «It’s great. Honestly, it’s way easier for people who aren’t interested in technology. They find it much easier to dump a bunch of pictures into a group chat.»
I imagine there are some grandparents out there who would much rather receive photos of their grandchild via a text message, email or even in the mail.
It’s also important to understand that even sharing photos in a group chat requires trusting the app or service those photos are being sent through, as well as the recipient. If you use an app like WhatsApp, Signal or Telegram you should understand how they transmit messages and the levels of privacy each offers.
For my money, I’d use Signal. The only data the app collects is your phone number, it encrypts all your messages and Signal and other third parties can’t access your messages or calls.
Adjust sharing settings before posting (and consider where you’re posting)
If you still want to post photos of your child online, you should consider making some changes to your posting habits beforehand.
Klosowski with EFF said it’s a good idea for parents to check their social media account settings and make sure they are comfortable with who can and can’t see their posts. Many social media platforms are public by default, so posting a photo of your kid would be like trusting each one of your followers — whether they are close friends, a random person or a bot — with a framed picture of your kid. Before posting a photo of your child, ask yourself if you would be OK with all of your followers and anyone else who might see the photo saving it to their device. If the answer is ‘no,’ then don’t post it.
If you would be OK with a few people having that photo but not everyone, many social media platforms allow you to change who can and can’t see your posts. Instagram, for example, allows you to make certain people Close Friends who can then view certain Reels that others can’t see. Some platforms, like Facebook, also let you set your posts to be viewable only to you, so you would kind of be turning your account into a digital photo album.
Changing your social media settings can limit who can and can’t see your posts, but just be aware that if you post a photo on a platform, no matter how restrictive your settings, the platform itself has that photo. When you post a photo on a social media platform, you own that photo, but according to the US Chamber of Commerce, the platform has a license to «use, distribute, copy, and display any content shared on their platform commercially; sublicense it for third-party use; or sell it altogether without ever paying a profit to the original creator.» So platforms could potentially use your posted photos in ads, but you should read a platform’s privacy policy to see how it treats posts.
And if you do share pictures of your kids online, make sure to use strong passwords to secure your social media accounts and consider using a password manager.
Hide your kid’s face and other key details
Another thing to consider if you do want to post a photo of your child is putting an emoji — especially smileys — over their face to protect their identity.
Joanne Orlando, a digital wellbeing researcher at Western Sydney University, told ABC Australia that hiding a child’s face behind an emoji or blurring their face could prevent the child’s face from being used in deepfakes and other AI tools.
You should also try to be vague about any details surrounding your child in posts. For example, you can take a photo of your child’s backpack hanging on a hook, or a stack of school books, instead of posting a photo of them wearing a backpack and holding a chalkboard announcing their first day at a new school. Beyond what your child looks like, details like the grade they’re in could allow someone to estimate your child’s approximate age, and announcing the school your kid is attending might let people know their location for most of the day.
Other considerations before you post about your kids
While those are some things you can do to protect your children online, there are other things to take into account before you or anyone else makes a post that involves your child.
Discuss boundaries with others
Parents should discuss with each other and with other family members what they are and aren’t comfortable posting online about their kid. It might be uncomfortable to have this conversation with family and friends, but it’s better to have it early before you go on vacation with extended family members who take and post a lot of pictures online.
«I don’t think you get to be mad at people for failing to meet your expectations if you weren’t clear about those expectations,» said Marechal.
Think of how your child might feel
Your child is a person with their own feelings. They may not be able to properly communicate or fully understand what’s happening when you post something on social media now, but they might in a decade. You might laugh at the video of them potty training, but will they find it amusing in a handful of years? Plus, do you really need to show the world your child sitting on a toilet?
Many parents have embarrassing photos and videos of their kids from when they were younger. I know there’s a photo of me when I’m young, standing half-naked in a bathtub tucked away in a box somewhere, and I would have been mortified as a teenager if that photo were posted online. There’s a difference between an embarrassing photo that only a few people have seen and that same photo being posted online, becoming part of the public record forever.
Albers said she likes to encourage parents to slow down and ask themselves why they are posting something before they do so.
«You don’t have to pretend your child doesn’t exist,» she said. «Take a moment to think about the information that might be in the post … And if you have a teen make sure, if they’re old enough, to get their consent. Asking their permission, ‘Is this OK if I post it?’ and really honoring [their answer].»
If you’ve already sharented, it’s not too late
If you have shared images and videos about your child online already, don’t panic! You can still set your accounts to private and take pictures or videos down from your social media pages. Plunkett said it’s still worth it to go back and pull things down from social media accounts.
«Just because you posted something and you can’t fully control where it’s gone, it doesn’t mean that you can’t do your best to reset boundaries,» she said.