The German city of Hagen is not usually known for creating world-reaching news, but the police department in this mid-sized town just managed to say something that seems to have hit the nerve of parents in the Facebook generation. A post by the police department’s social media team has gotten millions of people talking in just a few days. Its simple message? Stop posting images of your children on Facebook!
Translation: “Please stop posting publicly visible images of your children on Facebook & Co.”
Until now, the main claim to fame of this relatively unknown German city was the fact that pop star Nena was born there (99 Red Balloons), but the local police department just captured some massive social media limelight with a single Facebook post that carried a simple, but powerful message: Stop posting pictures of your children on Facebook and on other social media platforms. Media outlets across Europe and further afield are now picking up this message and the debate is in full swing. Read the (translated) message they posted below:
The original post that went viral.
Here is a translated version of the above post that went viral:
Please stop posting pictures of your children that are visible to everyone on Facebook and other platforms! Your children have a right to privacy, too!
A snapshot at the beach or while bathing nude in the paddling pool: many of you post pictures of your little ones on Facebook and on other social media platforms. And quite often these posts are visible to everyone, without any appropriate safeguards where privacy settings are concerned.
You might find these pictures cute today, but they will be endlessly embarrassing to your child in a few years’ time. Or your child might even get bullied because of them. Even worse: Pedophiles are helping themselves to such photos and use them for their own purposes, or publish them elsewhere.
Your child has a right to privacy, too. Pictures of children categorically have no place in social networks. Because the internet “forgets” nothing.
Better show the pictures of your children to grandma or grandpa, or to relatives, friends and acquaintances in person. It’s also much nicer to talk and smile about them together.
Thank you!
Your Hagen Police Department
P.S.: We seem to have hit a nerve with this topic. Until now, our message has reached over 15 million people. Good!
What do you think? Do you agree that posting images of children on social networks is a bad idea? Or has the internet police gone too far here? Let us know in the comments on our Facebook page as usual!
