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German Police Warn Parents To Stop Posting Photos of Kids On Facebook (thestack.com)

Posted by samzenpus on from the not-in-your-best-interest dept.

An anonymous reader writes: A post on Facebook by German police advising parents not to post pictures of their children on the social media site has been shared more than 100,000 times and viewed by over seven million people. The Hagen Police left its warnings about paedophile interest with the suggestion that kids might not appreciate the early publicity after they have grown up a little.

2 of 143 comments (clear)

  1. Why should I care? by Harlequin80 · · Score: 5, Informative

    I say this as the father of two little girls. But if I post pictures on facebook of my daughters they are photos that I have deemed OK for public consumption. They are photos that if they were published on the front page of a news paper I would be absolutely fine about it. So given that, why should I care if someone with a perversion finds one of them titillating? Yeah it's definitely pretty high on the gross out scale but maybe I shouldn't post pictures of my cat then for a similar reason?

    This is a totally totally stupid suggestion. If someone does collect photos of kids off the internet from facebook NO CHILD IS HARMED. Stupid.

  2. A bit misleading... by nava68 · · Score: 5, Informative

    I just read the original post by the Polizei Hagen and the context is not so much about pedophiles but the emphasis is more on basic privacy concerns... A quick and dirty translation (usual caveats apply):

    Please stop posting photographs of your children for all to see on Facebook and Co! - Even your children have privacy!
    A snapshot naked on the beach or bathing in the pool: Many of you publish pictures of their little ones on Facebook and Co. And very often those are visible to everyone, without any appropriate safeguards in the privacy settings. Maybe you consider the pictures adorable today, but they might prove endlessly embarrassing for your children in a few years - or they might even get bullied! Even worse: pedophile inclined people may use such photos for their own purposes or publish them elsewhere. Your children have a right of privacy. We feel that pictures of children should not be published in social networks. Because the Internet never "forgets" anything. View your pictures of your little ones wtih grandma, grandpa, aunt, uncle, friends and acquaintances rather personally. Because: Isn't it so much nicer to talk and smile about them together?
    Thank you!
    Your Police Hagen