Privacy

Privacy is a human right. Something we all should have access to. We should be able to choose what the rest of the world sees and when and how. Each individual person is responsible for how they are presented to the world. Shouldn't they decide which parts of their life it sees? Are there people better suited for handling this information, parents for example? A parents job is to protect and raise their children. They make many decisions for them when they are young and even as they grow older. Can they effectively decide how much should be shared about their children?

Facebook and other social media sites are filled with people's children. Everyone wants to share their child's greatest achievement. they want family and friends aware of what their kids are doing and what they currently look like. Parents love to take group photos and portraits and post them as profile pictures and things to comment on. This is common in this technology driven era. Not posting photos of your kids is considered uncommon. This oversharing isn't necessarily good, though. Teenagers are warned not to post everything online because in a few years a job or college might see that photo of you smoking weed or partying. Parents can make this same mistake too, though. An innocent photo to a parent could change the decisions of potential schools, jobs or relationships.

Children should have a say in what a parent can or cannot post about them. If a child doesn’t like a particular photo, why should the rest of the world get to see it? When it comes to anyone else taking a photo they always have the choice of where they can post it, otherwise it a violation of privacy. Parents are no different. It also risks children’s name and face being posted on the internet for anyone to see. There are bad people out there. If a child is worried about someone finding them through their parent’s account, it should be posted.

Children are much more aware than some parents give credit for. Sometimes they see consequences that parents regard as unimportant. They should not have to face these consequences because of a picture.