I’ve got a fantastic and funny pic over the weekend of my son sitting on top of a sprinkler statue as it sprays. The way he is sitting and looking at the spray, it looks like he’s emitting the most glorious pee stream ever. At the other end of the stream is a little girl who happened to be enjoying the playground that day as well, holding a bucket, collecting the water.
It’s a funny, wonderful picture that I want to put on my facebook. I hardly ever put anything on there, but I know my family and friends are likely to see it that way.
However, I feel weird posting a pic with this little girl in the picture. I thought of blurring her face, but it immediately changes the mood of the pic for me.
Just set it to Friends only so the only people looking at it are people you know (unless you have 15,000 friends on Facebook). The girl isn’t identified and I think that should be sufficient. It’s not as though she’s getting hit in the face with the water or anything.
I don’t know the little girl. She was just at the playground playing with him. I could crop her out, but it’s both of them that make the pic so good.
I could have my wife post it instead I don’t think it comes off as sexist or anything, just funny… well, maybe Jezebel would view it as sexist but I I don’t have them on my facebooks friends
My main issue was feeling weird about posting the face of a kid I don’t know/is not mine publicly… wlel publicly to my few dozen facebook friends.
It’s really just a funny pic of kids playing. I think I’m going to have my wife post it. She can take the hit if it goes sour… muahahahaha!
People get really weird about strangers and photos of their kids. I have a friend that’s sort of a professional amateur photographer.
She took a shot that she wanted to enter in a contest. It’s was a photo of a young girl, about 6 years old, talking to a priest in Orthodox dress against a modern city background. The girl was most turned away, only a sliver of the face was visible.
Because she plays by the rules, she managed to identify the child with the help of the church so she could obtain a release. But not only did the parents refuse permission, they were nasty and treated her like some criminal that had been stalking their child. She was really shaken up by the whole incident.
Technical answer: the courts have ruled that you have no expectation of privacy while out in public. Furthermore, as the photographer, you own the copyright, and can do anything you want with it (subject to certain commercial restrictions which do not apply here).
However, you would be surprised at the number of people who cannot wrap their minds around such a simple concept. I’m an amateur photographer too. I’ve had people yell at me for not asking permission to take their picture. And as Ann Hedonia said, it gets even more lunatic when children are involved.
I personally would probably go ahead and post it. However, I would echo the advice to be careful in terms of how many people can see it.
The picture you describe wouldn’t even trip the “other people might be bothered by this” barometer for me. It’s got your kid in it, and it’s a humorous picture. I would not expect that to put out any weird vibes to anyone.
The sole exception might be the parents of the kid, who might just not like strangers having pics of their kid. But, if you just share it with friends, that shouldn’t be a problem.
Of course, I’m just going by observing–I don’t really put pics on my Facebook at all, let alone silly ones of my young family members. I’m just basing this on the videos I remember people freaking out about. It’s kinda a vibe you get after awhile online.
Am I the only one who thinks that you should be concerned about somebody else here( who hasn’t been mentioned yet)–but who is by far the most important person to worry about?
I’m talking about the OP’s kid…that little boy with his “glorious stream of pee”.
He’s cute—right now.
But he’s going to grow up fast.
And what’s cute for a 5 year old can be deathly embarrassing to an 8 year old.
Imagine him at the playground 25 or 30 months from now: but instead of being accompanied by only by mommy and daddy, he is on his own, with a bunch of other kids his age…and they are all laughing at him and calling him rude names for peeing in public…
Don’t put the pic on the internet.
Print out the picture, and cherish it… in the privacy of your home…
Take the printout with you to the next family reunion, show it to grandpa and everybody, share a good laugh. Then put it back in your pocket and take it home again.
In fact,this could be a great teaching moment in another decade or so.
When he reaches middle school,you’re going to have to explain to your kid not to post embarrassing pics on the net.
When he asks why----Retrieve this photo and show it to him .
And ask him how he’d feel if you publish it…
I don’t Facebook, but my wife does so I’ve seen some of Facebook’s behaviors.
Since Facebook employs automatic face recognition in the pictures you upload (unless you explicitly disable the function), that little stranger may be named to you by automatic tagging if Facebook has seen her before (manually tagged in earlier pictures by a Facebook subscriber).
Furthermore, if her family Facebooks, the tagging process may suggest to Mommy or Daddy that you are someone “they may know”, essentially tattling on you that you put little Daughter’s picture up on Facebook, as well as possibly introducing you to either your next best friend for all eternity, or creepy demanding stalkers (or potential plaintiff in your next experience with the civil justice system.)
YMMV. This strikes me as a dumb idea, but a lot of that is just extension from the base premise that Facebook is a dumb idea.
My original post was going to be ok, you trust the people with whom you share the photo, but if they share it you have no control over who sees it. However, chappachula makes an even more compelling argument about how it might affect your son in the future. Nothing on the internet ever goes away.
I posted a picture of some antics going on at 3 in the afternoon at a bar. One of my friends was in the picture and got tagged. The picture led (eventually) to his divorce.
Don’t post that picture. Please. The 40 seconds of glee you will get and half a dozen “likes” will be instantly outweighed by the fact that that picture will be online FOREVER. Just don’t do it. Be a grownup. Respect the kid’s privacy. Honest to God. :smack:
If the picture is so cute, then YOU sit on the sprinkler and let someone take YOUR picture and put that one online.
Some of my friends show me the “cute” pics of their kids that they put on facebook (I’m not on facebook) and I absolutely cringe.
Just. Don’t. Do. It.
If you have to, email the pic to a few people with the request that they NOT put it on FB.
I’m not going to tell you do it, or tell you not to do it. But I am going to tell you this.
If you share a photo on Facebook, any of your FB friends can download a copy of it and do anything they want with it. Once you post it you lose control of what happens to it and who sees it. For example, a friend could think it’s funny and re-post it to the world.
Jeebus people, I’m too old for this facebook bullshit.
I left it in the hands of my wife. Who, apparently, blurred the pic herself (I didn’t know she knew how to photoshop), and then posted it up on MY facebook.
I might have grounds for a lawsuit, IMHO. I’d be willing to settle for lots of sex though, let’s see what her lawyer says…
In the meantime, the pic has gotten a lot of likes and laughs, mostly from her German friends and family. Those Germans.
Kids live their entire lives on the internet. Anyone who thinks the boy in the picture will be embarrassed by it years from now, has no idea how much idiotic crap kids have out there these days. This will be a drop in the bucket, if it even makes into the bucket, of nutty stuff he’ll have out there by age 15.
Anyone else intrigued to see the picture but wary of actually asking to see it even though this entire thread is about how paranoid people can be about pictures of children on Internet?
