A Teen’s Eye View on Social Media Safety

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We live in a digital age. During a time of hashtags and DMs, posting on social media has become second nature to many of us. We post pictures of our food, our pets, selfies, and for many parents, our children. But when it comes to social media content, where should we draw the line between what’s for the public and what’s for ourselves?

On Jan 11 People’s Daily published an article on the sale of erotic sticker packages on Taobao with images of babies. When the reporter contacted the seller with questions of copyright infringement, the owner’s response was “[the photos] were all collected online, no [infringement]”.

Sticker packages for sale

Lawyer Zhou Junwu, a senior partner of Beijing Jincheng Tongda Law Firm, said “businesses choose more foreign child stars because it is less likely for the parents to find out.”

You might not know, but by doing this you could bring your child and yourself in huge danger. In the article, they talk about what people are doing with them, namely that they are selling for commercial use and using a certain Korean child star photos as the emoticon package, which sells at RMB 1.49 for 100 photos. The photos are then used everywhere on the internet with various captions written across them. Not only do they sell these cute pictures, but they can turn these ‘cute’ pictures into pornography for people.

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It’s not just unknowing parents who fall prey to social media theft. Teens do it as well. I have friends that take funny and embarrassing pictures of me. We all do it to each other all the time. I don’t mind that they have embarrassing pictures of me, but if they post them online without my consent, I don’t like it and ask them nicely to take the post down. Over the years I’ve learned to ask my friends if I can take the pictures on my phone so that I know it’s safe and only the people I want will get a hold of them.

My family isn’t really the type that takes pictures every second and they don’t really post pictures of my sister and me online because of privacy and knowing the dangers. I’m thirteen years old and a lot of people my age have social media like Instagram or Snapchat. I have them too but I make sure I don’t post anything personal or revealing. I am aware of the dangerous people out there so I try to keep my personal information private.

The internet is forever. This is something we’ve all been taught since the internet was first invented. Once a picture is online, it can never truly be deleted. So the next time parents want to post photos of their kids, ask yourself this: “Is this something my child will be embarrassed by in a few years and is this a photo that could be misconstrued by others?”

This article is part of beijingkids’ Teen Correspondents program. If you or a teen you know wants to write for us, email Deputy Editor [e-mail].

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Images: Unsplash, People’s Daily

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