Slashdot Mirror
A Woman Is Suing Her Parents For Posting Embarrassing Childhood Photos To Facebook
Earlier this year, we ran a story which talked about how a parent could be sued by their kids for posting their photos on Facebook. Over the past two years, we have seen several such cases, and now we have another one. From a report on NYMag:An 18-year-old woman in Carinthia, Austria, is suing her parents over the 500-odd childhood photos they've posted of her on Facebook without her consent. "They knew no shame and no limit and didn't care whether it was a picture of me sitting on the toilet or lying naked in my cot -- every stage was photographed and then made public," she told The Local, an English-language Austrian newspaper. She went on, "I'm tired of not being taken seriously by my parents," who, despite her requests, have refused to take the photos down. The woman's father reportedly believes he's in the right to post the pictures because he took them. But her lawyer is adamant that if he can prove the photos violated the woman's right to privacy, her parents could be forced to pay damages and legal fees.
can we see those photos?
Be or ben't
I'm trying to wrap my brain around a parent who says no to their child's request that photos of the child be taken down from the Internet. This isn't even an issue of good parenting, it's an issue of common courtesy!
Do parents need consent if they are already granted the rights to make legal decisions for their under 18-year-old children? Can't they just decide for the kid as is their obligation and right?
Teenagers are tricky create they often have little empathy of their own yet are highly sensitive to perceived slights and are easily embarrassed. They are also impulsive and easily convinced to do things that are ultimately only going to be self destructive like suing ones own parents over a relatively minor thing.
I can understand both attitudes here. As a parent you need to show that it is you are in control and you who make the rules. You don't have to stop doing something because your children don't approve, but they will not be permitted to do what you find objectionable beyond the leeway you might be willing to afford them.
On the other hand if it was my kid this isn't the hill I'd pick to die on (well I never would have posted the stuff in the first place). I think I would say well mom and I posted those pictures because we are proud of you and our family but if they make you uncomfortable we will mark them private so only us and your grand parents can see them. Seem like this would be a good moment to show some empathy and hope the kid models in the future.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Both. The daughter suing her parents over this is absurd but the parents not removing them when it evidently upsets her this much is appalling.
Well the fact that she is now 18 legally she is an adult. While people mature at different rates, and many 18 year olds still have a lot of maturity problems. However the parents who should have more empathy should had listened to their child's concerns and take them down, and not use such a thing as some sort of power play. For this particular case seems out of hand.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Man, it's like nothing makes sense anymore! Naked girl on fire good, naked girl not on fire bad, how exactly are we deciding these things?!
Both. The daughter suing her parents over this is absurd but the parents not removing them when it evidently upsets her this much is appalling.
So, what should she do if her parents refuse to remove photos, including her "sitting on the toilet or lying naked in my cot"?
You're telling me it's "absurd" for her to sue, and she should "Grow The Fuck Up (tm)". But you're not telling me what she should actually do. What choices does she have other than suing?
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
I'd take them down, then thar would be the last she ever heard of me. "You are no longer in our life, person - is that taking you seriously enough?"
If your response to everyone that gets mad at you for something you did is to shut them out of your life forever you're going to live a pretty lonely life. Doubly so if those people are your children. Shutting a child out of your life is an absolutely brutal thing to do. I have direct experience in my family of what this is like. Parents who do this for any reason other than self protection are assholes.
You are correct about not knowing the dynamics of the situation. but if a child of mine ever sued me for anything, it would be the last contact they'd ever have with me.
Based on your response that might be good thing. You sound unbalanced and I'm guessing you don't have children. You seriously believe that no matter how badly you behave the child should never be able to drag you in to court? Some parents are terrible, abusive, mean, or manipulative. Some parents steal from their children or beat them or abuse them both physically and psychologically. There is a reason emancipated minors are a thing. If an adult (she is 18) child actually gets to the point where you behavior has made them think that the only means to get you to behave nicely is to sue you then the problem is most likely YOU. What exactly do the parents lose by taking the pictures down? Nothing. They are keeping them up just out of spite and/or disrespect for self indulgent reasons. I'm having trouble seeing any scenario where the parents are the good guys here.
If I posted a picture of someone and they asked me to take it down I see no reason to be a jerk about it and ignore the request. Granted going to court about it is pretty extreme but it's entirely conceivable that it is justified (or possibly not). Frankly I wouldn't want all my childhood pictures being posted publicly either so I get where the daughter is coming from. I don't have a facebook account for this very reason among others. Some people value their privacy and don't want everyone in the world to see every detail of their lives. Reasonable people will honor this point of view so long as it causes no harm and none could possibly come from taking down the pictures..
The obvious answer is to ignore it. Non-mentally-ill adults do not experience "emotional distress" over the fact that people may see some of their baby pictures.
Why should she ignore it? That will not solve her problem. They are pictures of her, not pictures of you and they affect her. There can be real consequences to having even seemingly innocent information made public. Maybe you don't care but she's entitled to a different opinion. I don't like having pictures of me posted without my consent either. It's one of the reasons I don't participate in facebook. The parents are being very disrespectful and possibly harmful. It costs them nothing to take the pictures down and respect her harmless request for privacy. Mentally ill people are those who lack empathy for others and the parents are the ones showing a distinct lack of it here.
I can get on board with the notion that suing might be overkill here but there is no objective reason for the parents to persist their behavior. I very much doubt they would like naked pictures of themselves posted publicly. The fact that she is a child in the pictures makes them arguably child porn if she really wants to play hardball over it. Just because someone is your parent doesn't make any and all behavior towards their child acceptable.
The difference is that, these days, the entire world can search for a person and find those embarrassing pictures at will. In the pre-internet days, that embarrassment was limited to the number of people whom the parents could physically shove those pictures in front of, assuming they didn't rent a billboard or something absurd like that. Instant global availability does changes things a bit, you have to admit. What happens if those pictures are the first thing that shows up when someone performs an online search using her name? Maybe that's not the first pictures she'd prefer to have someone find of her.
Worth suing your parents over? Obviously, this family had other issues. Reasonably people would have agreed to take down the photos after realizing it was making the child uncomfortable.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
According to another newspaper (Berliner Morgenpost) this story might be a hoax. Suspeced reasons: There is a single source for this story (Austrian tabloid "Die ganze Woche"), the court cited in the article doesn't know anything about this case, her lawyer cited in this article doesn't know anything about this case, the newspaper that is the only source doesn't comment on inquiries at all and the people involved in the lawsuit can't be contacted directly because their identities are not known. All of this makes the chances this is made up pretty high.
Today's experiment