“I found your parent’s Facebook”: The Baby Content generation fights back

CLIP You are listening to a Frequency Podcast network production.

Jordan Heath Rawlings The clip starts with music straight out of a horror movie because for some kids, That’s exactly what it is. The script of that horror movie is exactly five words long. It says, I found your parents Facebook. The first generation of children who were born into a Facebook world are coming of age right now. And many of them have spent the past few years realizing just how many pictures and videos of them already exist online from cute baby pictures to adoring notes on their first milestones to videos of public tantrums posts containing their private medical diagnoses, embarrassing evidence of potty training, mishaps, and more. It is all there good, bad, and ugly. And these kids are also discovering that they don’t own or control any of it. Some of them have had difficult conversations with their parents. Some of them have severed the relationship altogether. Some have even gone to court to get their own baby pictures back from the parents who posted them. And those are just the children that were on early stage Facebook. Very soon the kids of influencers, YouTubers and TikTokers will realize not just how much of their lives have already been shared, but how much money has been made from that. After all the parents hold the cameras, but the kids are the stars. So what rights do they have?

I am Jordan Heath Rawlings. This is The Big Story. Kate Lindsay is a culture writer, a co-founder of Embedded. And she wrote about the phenomenon of the Facebook generation growing up for The Atlantic. Hi Kate.

Kate Lindsay Hi. Thank you for having me.

Jordan Heath Rawlings You are very welcome. Are kids looking up their parents’ Facebook pages and posting this to TikTok? Do I have to be worried about this?

Kate Lindsay I mean, yes. So one of the things I stumbled across while reporting this piece was there’s kind of a few variations of a trend where, I mean, there’s one trend that’s like super straightforward, that’s like, watch me grow up through my parents’ Facebook photos. And they’ll go through and pull out just like photos from, from their childhood and kind of, and it’ll be like a time capsule that way. But then there’s also jokes about. Finding a classmate’s parent’s social media or a crushes parent’s Facebook or like there was one that I linked to in the piece. That’s just when you find out that your, their parent’s, Facebook is public, like that. All that is like understood to mean that you have access to all these photos of them as a child, growing up. All these things that were not posted by them, but now are accessible for kind of the world to see.

Jordan Heath Rawlings What’s the timeline on that? I’m trying to give people a sense of the age groups we’re talking about here. When was that peak time of, for lack of a better term, the stuff you really wouldn’t want your kids to find being put on Facebook or the stuff that your kids might be really embarrassed by?

Kate Lindsay Right. And so a lot of like, so Kami for instance, who’s, someone I spoke to for the piece, a lot of the content that was difficult for her was in her sort of tween middle school, early high school years. And she ended up dropping out of high school. And for her it was kind of a unique situation where her mother was just a bit of an overshare, posting things about medical diagnoses. Like something that she mentioned when she and I spoke was that her mother had been posting about her MRSA diagnosis and even though it had been months, since she had had MRSA, it meant that even teachers at school were making her sit at separate desks, all because this information was public. But I mean Facebook probably like around 2006, to 2010 is like the early years. And so anyone who was a child during that time is dealing with now kind of coming of age and realizing that all those photos are there and then, you know, over the next five, 10 years even, it’s gonna be even younger like children who were, who were truly newborn. And so it’s one of those things like, we’re just starting to see sort of a, this unintended consequence.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Well, let’s talk about Kami for a minute, because she’s a really interesting case. Not all this stuff that we discuss about this issue will probably be this extreme, but, but tell me what happened to her and who she is?

Kate Lindsay Yeah, so Kami is someone who, I actually came across on TikTok. She’s since gone on to be pretty vocal about sort of child privacy on the internet. But I kind of came across her in December because she had been tagged in a video and made a response basically about how her experience growing up with a parent really oversharing on social media. And so obviously there, there’s tears to how much parents share, but in Kami’s case, it was very early Facebook days, so her mother’s profile was public or she would accept friend requests from just anyone, and Kami kind of learned that behavior from her as well. And so she was very open with her own social media. But in terms of what her mom specifically posted, I mean, she would, things about her adoption status, about her health every time she had to go to the hospital. And then there were sort of, there was an instance that Kami mentioned where she and her mother were driving in a car and they were hit by a drunk driver. And, Kami had to be rescued using like, you know, the jaws of life. And she’s thankfully fine. But during that time she was telling me that the people holding her hands were like the nurses and the doctors and that her mother was there taking pictures and, and you know, sharing it with Facebook. Because I mean, I think in, I imagine if I were to think of it from a mother’s perspective, she was just like, oh my gosh, this horrible thing has happened. Let me reach out to my community. But for Kami, it was like, no, I need you to be here in this moment. And for some reason, Facebook is the priority.

Jordan Heath Rawlings How normal is this kind of sharing? I mean, I realize Kami’s a bit of an extreme example, in terms of that kind of sharing. But like Facebook is, especially at the time we’re talking about here, like a genuine phenomenon and, and what did people understand or think about at the time about sharing this stuff?

Kate Lindsay Yeah. So I mean, sharing photos of children on Facebook, I mean, if I were to go on my Facebook right now, that would be pretty much all I’d see because it’s, I’m hitting the period of my life when so many of the Facebook friends I made are reaching that point and in and now, you know, not just Facebook. We’re on every piece of social media, on Instagram, on TikTok, you know, you’re gonna see children on there. You know, these parents aren’t, villains or, or doing it with the disregard for what’s going to happen. But it’s more just, you know, a quote from the piece from an author named Sarah Peterson who wrote a book called Momfluenced. She kind of said, you know, parenting you, you don’t get raises, you don’t get bonuses, you don’t get even like really that much of, you know, a pat on the back for it is just expected. And so social media is kind of a rare tool. Where you can show this really physical proof of your work, which is your child. And it’s the one place where you’re gonna get, you know, the likes, the comments, the validation for the work you’re doing, that you really don’t get anywhere else. And also, you know, in terms of documentation, I mean, pretty much all of us, even before social media our childhood, is documented in photos and home videos. And so it’s the exact same impulse, but it’s kind of a different arena where, and now we’re realizing, you know, oh, something that goes on Facebook isn’t the same as putting it in a photo album because Facebook doesn’t go away. It shows up in search results or is easy to find. So it’s pretty common. But I, and I’d also say that there is, as millennials specifically as some of the first generation to kind of grow up online in a way where they were able to look back at older stuff and be like, oh, I don’t want that visible anymore. They are bringing some of that awareness to their own children, but it not, it’s by no means like universal, is definitely a conversation that’s just starting.

Jordan Heath Rawlings What kind of measures are in place, first of all, without getting into legality and governments by social media companies themselves. Are there guidelines or is it basically just like no naked picks?

Kate Lindsay So there are, there are guidelines in the sense that, you know, pretty much every major platform in the US requires, users to be at least 13 years of age, on Instagram. Specifically, if the account, is an account for, like, you know, people will make accounts for their children before they’re 13. They have to sort of clearly note in the bio that it is being run by a parent. Any rules like nudity is, is obviously the big one. I think, where it gets a little dicey is like, is. You know, it was like accusations of abuse or like violence or something like that would be theoretically something that is cut and dry. But I think the things that the children are kind of talking about aren’t, aren’t anything that fall under those categories. It’s just kind of records of them that make sense for them as a child that, that they don’t want existing next to them as they are as adults. What kind of rights to privacy do children have in these situations? So that’s pretty dicey. That was something I was looking into and basically in the cases that we kind of look for a lot of, any sort of general expectation of privacy that a child has is superseded by parental authority. Which basically just means that legally parents are kind of trusted to know what’s best for their children. So it’s not super cut and dry. And similarly, something we get into in the piece is that like there aren’t any laws about like giving the children any rights to their image once they’ve grown up. So even like if they’re 18 and they’re now looking back at this photo of them throwing their poop or whatever, they can’t say like, that’s a photo of me, you have to take it down.

Jordan Heath Rawlings The parents own it, right?

Kate Lindsay The parents own it and now like this is something they can start having that conversation with their parents. That’s something that, that the piece kind of touches on. The Family Institute of Online Safety, I spoke to the CEO, that there are sort of children becoming 10, 11, 12 whenever they come to the age where they really start to understand what it means that their photos are on social media. They’re, they have to ask this of their parents, but, there, there’s nothing legally like when they turn 18 that they can really do. There are efforts to sort of codify that. But even so, the efforts that are underway are equally are important. They’re about, but they’re more about monetized social media channels. So like, obviously lots, lots of family accounts become cr like full-time creators, family vloggers, they earn money. And so their, their efforts to one, Entitle the children of those accounts to some of the money that the accounts make off of their image. And also there these two bills, like one that was in Washington and one that’s moving a little faster in Illinois, would hopefully also allow the children to, when they turn 18, they can request that anything of their image that was used to be monetized can be taken down. But still that’s very monetized family specific and, and doesn’t apply to, you know, a vast majority of the children who are growing up right now. And equally probably would like to have a say over what of them was put on the internet before they were truly cognizant of it.

Jordan Heath Rawlings It is a really interesting little subsection though, because when you think about it, especially, you know, you mentioned mom influencers and like, I follow a lot of these accounts on TikTok, or at least I see them. And like the kids are doing the real work. Like, let’s be honest, they’re the stars, right? And they have no control over A the money, B the content even later.

Kate Lindsay Right. And like in Hollywood there’s something called, the a C-gen Law or Coogan account. This was something that was ruled like in the thirties. And the thing is, it really hasn’t changed since then. But what it does is it entitles child actors to, I think it’s 15% of the 50% of that money that they earn has to get put away in what is called a Coogan account specifically. So it is just for them, not accessible by their parents, but it really hasn’t been updated. I mean, actually there was a New York Times opinion piece that was out, I think, either today or yesterday about how that rule doesn’t even apply to children on reality shows. So it really needs to be updated, and I think especially in the case of content creators, they should be included. But still, like I said, yeah, that that still leaves regular children who are being posted in a kind of grey area.

Jordan Heath Rawlings When you talk to those folks or talk to some of these kids who are now adults or talk to the organizations that work with them, what are those conversations like? It’s such a fascinating dynamic to think that these 10, 11, 12 year olds are, you know, the mature ones, taking a reasonable stance and saying like, mom, you know, this might affect my future job, employment, and all that kind of stuff, which is a total reversal of how I was raised with the internet, where my parents were telling me, don’t do anything.

Kate Lindsay Yeah, I know it’s been a little dicey. Like in the case of Kami, her mother, they have not been able, they don’t really have much of a relationship anymore. But even when they did have these conversations, they did not see eye to eye on the effects. But sort of some other people who I’ve spoken to, it’s been hard for them to bring up, if at all. And I think a lot of the, sort of universal thing I’m seeing just from this people I’ve spoken to is a real protectiveness and insecurity over their own image, over pictures of them, over what will happen with information that they share. Will it end up online like a real issue of privacy and, and control? And I think it is hard to, it’s a hard thing to broach with your parents, I think because as a 10, 11, 12 year old to tell your parents that they’ve done something wrong or you know, even that something bad to you right is, that’s such a hard thing to say. And like Kami’s mother was maybe more of a generation that could claim ignorance a little bit about what social media, digital footprints meant how long they would last. But I would say the onus, rather than being on the kids to sit down with their parents, should really be on the, you know, these parents, new parents today who have every awareness in the world of just how long lasting and kind of omnipresent social media is and, and adjust accordingly.

Jordan Heath Rawlings So with that said, I mean, as you mentioned, in 2006 to now almost two decades, kids are old enough to be adults. What have we learned? Have we been able to come to some kind of consensus at all as to what the right level of sharing is? Because I have a kid and I love posting pictures of my daughter. I try not to post anything I think she would be embarrassed by it, try to post cute shots. But to your point, I also really do wanna share pictures of her because it is work and I am proud of it.

Kate Lindsay Yeah, I think it’s, you know, there’s not one a one size fits all, and I certainly don’t think you can’t post anything in any form right. I think it’s, it’s a matter of what, just figuring out your own family’s comfort. Like there are families who will post photos of their children, but it, it’s, they make sure that their face is hidden either by the angle of the camera, or they’ll like literally take an emoji and cover the face. But then other families, you know, a photo, a smiling photo, a normal family photo, like that’s, you know, that’s not really anything you can kind of for the most part safely. Guess that that’s not gonna age poorly. Some people will make dedicated accounts for their family photos that they can control. The followers, they’ll use the close friend feature on Instagram. So the general advice would just be to like, just be aware of your audience and I think keep it as locked down as possible. The more public it is, the more just like you don’t know where that photo can go. And especially on a platform like TikTok that is like really designed to put, even if you don’t have any followers, it’s really designed to put your content in front of as many people as possible. That in general was, one of the big things that had me thinking about this piece was just the way social media is changing from being, connecting with people in your circle to getting in front of strangers. And that’s where I think you, you have to start being aware of something. It honestly is probably hard to conceptualize, which is just how many people could see this picture video and how comfortable you are with that. And so it’s, it’s, it’s a specter but I think keeping control of your audience, keeping it locked down. And like as a parent, being open to maybe even starting those conversations with your children as they grow up, just to make it a little bit easier.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Here’s another question. We are not the only people taking photos of our kids. My kid’s birthday’s next week, she’s gonna have a party. There’s gonna be other kids there. Those kids have parents. Those parents are gonna want to take pictures. What do you do in that situation? I’m not saying I don’t want them to share it or anything, but how do you navigate those conversations with like, okay, you know, my, my child’s gonna be at your house, but I don’t share them on social media, so don’t post them. Everything seems like a minefield.

Kate Lindsay Yeah. I mean, there was a parent I spoke to for the piece named Christina, and she runs into a similar thing. They, they have posted a few photos of their daughter, but they keep her face hidden. And for the most part, they kind of just have a blanket, don’t post her rule. And then she said like, that’s kind of the most complicated part is, you know, her and her husband are very clear on what the rules are. But when it gets to friends, even other members of her own family, they have had, they said they’ve had to like gently correct people a few times. They’ve had to, they’ve spotted a photo posted and they have to be like, no, can you take that down? And they just have to make the boundary very clear. And that’s like a whole other. A whole other thing that can be difficult because surprisingly, people can have very negative reactions to that request, or confusing reactions. Like Christina said that she was enforcing the boundary or, and a friend asked like, why isn’t your child on social media? And kind of asked, the question in a way that insinuated maybe there was something wrong with the child and that’s why Christina wasn’t sharing her like you’re ashamed of your child. Otherwise, of course you would be sharing her as widely as possible. It’s so weird. And then there’s, you know, like her parents are very like, like they, they want to brag about their granddaughter and it’s difficult for them to understand. I think especially being different generations of the internet, it’s difficult for them to understand why Christina won’t let them do that. Especially, you know, for them among their peers who are all showing their grandchildren, like they wanna have that thing too. Deciding it among your family is one thing, but then it’s really hard once you bring other people into the mix cause everyone has a phone.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Last thing I want to talk about is when the shoe is on the other foot. We began this discussion by talking about kids on TikTok, finding their parents’ Facebook. I’ve seen videos where not only do they find their parents’ Facebook, they just roast them basically for the stuff they were doing back when they were 18, 20, 22 and posting it all to Facebook. I assume the parents don’t have any different rights in that situation since it’s all public. Have you gone back? Do you look at your old social media posts differently?

Kate Lindsay Oh man. I mean, the, the parent thing is interesting cuz actually when I was reporting this a, a side piece that I wrote for embedded my newsletter was, just wholly about children discovering their own parents’ social media. And it’s really interesting because social media is such a living document in a way that like I remember when I stumbled across my parents’ yearbook and that was like so wild to me to see them at the same age. And it was also like so limiting in comparison to what children can do now, which is dive in. But yeah, I mean, I guess theoretically that way around that a parent could equally, equally take issue, especially cause some of these things do go viral on TikTok. I’ve seen the exact videos you’re talking about. And, and I, but I, I, I think children can be cruel. I know they can be cruel, and if anything, maybe it’s just, it highlights parents getting a taste of their own medicine. They’re like, oh, I, I don’t like this. So maybe it’ll make them think about posting their kid differently too.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Kate, thanks so much for this. It’s really fun.

Kate Lindsay Thanks so much for having me.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Kate Lindsay writing in the Atlantic. That was The Big Story. For more, you can head to TheBigStorypodcast.ca. You can head anywhere you want. Just don’t head to my Facebook page. You can also find us on Twitter @TheBigStoryfpn. Of course, you can write to us hello@TheBigStorypodcast.ca, and you can always call and leave a voicemail (416)-935-5935. You can find The Big Story absolutely anywhere you get podcasts. As you know by now, we would very much appreciate a rating or a review. But even better than that, tell somebody else you know about this show. Thanks for listening. I’m Jordan Heath Rawlings. We’ll talk tomorrow.