Your child likeness is absolutely being used in external accounts to then who are in other children for predators to groom. These are the unforeseen consequences of Sharenting. Sharenting is everything from sharing an individual picture of a child to parental public oversharing that we see on vlogging accounts with families. The average parent will post 1500 pictures of their child on social media before they turn five. Children's identities can be stolen and used in things like baby roleplay in which Instagram users steal images of children, give them a new name and personality and claim them as their own or pretend to be the kids themselves. Predators are using children's likeness online to create profiles to lure in other children. You look like this. They may just meet. You want to play Rootswax and they used Stephanie's daughter's picture that she posted to pose as this little girl to lure in other children to then gain access to them to begin the group. And photos can end up in the last place a parent would ever want them to. The majority of the content that's found in places like Nambla websites and men looking for boys and men looking for girls websites is not new photos of your children, but its pictures of their feet and its pictures of their arms and their wrists. The number one saved photo to a predator's computer when the FBI sees it is the copper-tone baby. But it's not just other people's actions that can cause harm. Constantly having to worry about putting on a show and then having to act in a very certain way in order to meet this image that people almost expect of you is absolutely a lot of pressure, especially on young kids. There's the fact that people know who I am and I've had no say in this so there's that lack of control in my life that could absolutely lead to mental health issues. What a parent post doesn't just disappear as the child grows up. Posts can and probably will live online forever. And by the age of 12, the kids are extremely aware of that fact according to one survey. A fourth of children said their parents post about them made them embarrassed, anxious or worried. I currently work with a handful of, they are no longer children, but they are still minors who are raised inside of Sharon team, particularly family vlog accounts who are coming out and speaking out about the extraordinary trauma that they endured inside of this level of exploitation. They feel unsafe in public. They've had their identity stolen on multiple occasions. They've been over sexualized and they feel at any given time they are hires statistically probably likely to experience either further exploitation or human trafficking. Even if the post seems harmless, photos and videos have the potential to be found by the child's future employers, friends and romantic prospects. During these kids turn 18 and 1920, they now have a social media and internet presence that they had zero say in what was up there. When I came down that rabbit hole, I came to the conclusion that there was no way I could safely share my child online without them being used for insidious purposes. It doesn't mean you can't post your kids, but here are some tips from experts on doing so respectfully. Don't reveal your child's location or personal information in the photo. Get the child's consent before sharing an image or video. Give the child veto power over what's being posted. Set up Google alerts for children's names in case something is posted. In an effort to hop inform parents and guardians, public health campaigns are being worked on to draw attention to the conflict between a parent's freedom to post and a child's right to privacy. In some countries, laws are catching up to technology faster than in others. A court in Europe ruled that internet providers must give users the right to be forgotten. In France, children are actually able to sue their parents for being posted without prior consent. Personally, I would love to see social media apps letting rules in place about how much these accounts are allowed to be making videos about young kids. Whether laws are in place or not, parents should think twice before posting their child and take precautions when doing so.