Nudie no-nos
What to think about before you post your babies’ photos online
Afriend recently posted a photo of his baby boy in the bath on Facebook. What made this photo different from all the other bare bottomed baby photos that fill my social media streams is that he had edited in a little black censor strip to cover his son’s genitals. At first I rolled my eyes and thought it was political correctness taken to the extreme: surely there’s no harm in sharing innocent photos of our kids in their birthday suits with friends and family? It’s not as if it’s illegal…
LAYING DOWN THE LAW
Turns out I was wrong on both counts. It can be harmful and, according to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), it is illegal. The NPA used Child Protection Week (27 May to 2 June) this year to send out a stern warning to South African parents: any image of a naked child is considered child pornography and parents who post these images online may be prosecuted.
Whether this threat is legally enforceable is debatable, but it did raise an even more important question: legal or not, should we post photos of our nude or even semi nude children online?
For Emma Sadleir, a Johannesburg based media law consultant who specialises in social media law, the answer is a very clear no. She says she would never post a nude photo of a child anywhere online because the risk of that photo – however innocently it was taken – being misused for child pornography is, sadly, very real. “It’s all too easy to copy and paste innocent photos and put them onto child porn sites. It can and does happen,” she warns.
Stephanie Dawson-cosser, a child and family relationship counsellor from Work & Family Matters, agrees and reminds parents they ultimately have no control over who sees that cute photo of your toddler playing in the sprinkler and what they do with it.
Emma cautions not to be lulled into a false sense of security because you believe only your friends and family can see your photos. She emphasises that there is essentially no such thing as “privacy” on social media, no matter how strict your privacy settings are. “The rules change all the time, quite literally. What’s private today may not be private tomorrow.” And yes, free social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram can change the rules as they see fit — you give them permission to do so when you sign up.
UPLOAD AND LOSE CONTROL
The fact is that as soon as you upload a photo online, especially to social media sites, you usually lose control over it. Once you click to confirm you accept the terms and conditions, you have entered into a contract with the social media site – many of those contracts include giving them the rights to your images.
Facebook, for example, has a terms of service agreement spanning over eight pages. Not many of their billion-plus users have bothered to read it, but if they did they would find that Facebook basically has license to use their content, including photos and videos, any way it sees fit. Plus they’ve given Facebook permission to pass on their content to any other company or organisation. “They could sell your images for advertising and they don’t even have to ask you, let alone pay you,” says Emma. Instagram, owned by Facebook for the past two years, claims similar rights over your photos. “If, for example, you add a filter