What to Know
By now, most of us are well aware of the dangers of sharing photos of our kids online. Some of us have the decency to make profiles private, while others have stopped showing kids altogether. Honestly, both moves are solid. But one mom had to learn that the hard way when someone stole photos of her kids to pass off as their own.
The mom, Meredith Steele, explains in a TikTok video what happened. According to her, she experienced “digital kidnapping” when someone basically stole her entire family’s identity for the sake of creating new online personas. At the time, Meredith had tons of photos of her family, including her kids, on Instagram. She had no idea that, in doing so and allowing her profile to be public, she was making her entire family vulnerable.
She said a stranger used the photos.
@babiesofsteele OP @Rachel Pedersen ♬ original sound – Meredith Steele
In Meredith’s video, she stitches her clip with a clip from another TIkTok where a woman asks users to share a mistake they “learned the hard way.” And for Meredith, it’s a bit of a doozy. So no, this isn’t a case of learning to use the correct washer setting or a pro-tip on how to get things done. Instead, it’s pretty serious.
“Protect your child’s digital footprint and do not post photos of them online,’ Meredith says. “I learned this the hard way. And sometimes when I share it, people tell me I’m a piece of s–t parent, and that’s fine if I have to go through it so that you don’t have to. Let’s go. When my page first blew up, I had no concept of Internet safety at all. And I had allowed people to follow my personal Instagram, which was covered in photos of my family.”
She explains that she would habitually update her Instagram with personal family photos, as parents tend to do. But that’s where she went wrong. After she posted about going out to a family dinner, a friend called her to share that they discovered Meredith’s photos were being used on another person’s account.
The person stole photos from her Instagram.
Meredith’s children did not ask to be part of her social media profiles. They did not ask, or likely even give permission, for their pictures to be such a big part of her content. And Meredith likely didn’t realize just how big of a deal it all is until she found herself at the mercy of a stranger who had taken so many photos that they had created a life for themselves digitally.
“Someone had built a page with, like, thousands of followers pretending to be me and my family with, like, new identities and new names and new lives,” Meredith says in her video. “And they had tagged the restaurant.”
She explains that this is “known as digital kidnapping.” She also admits that it “might sound dramatic” until you are faced with seeing your children on a total stranger’s account on social media.
Digital kidnapping is a warning for all parents on social media.
When TikTok first blew up, there were plenty of families and even accounts centered around children specifically who were making content with the kids’ faces on full display. Since then, however, some users and parents have become more wise and can better understand the dangers of sharing personal photos of children online.
One mom commented on Meredith’s video, “My husband works in cyber security. Our entire extended families think we are nuts because we don’t allow posting of our kids online.”
Another user added, “The fact that people don’t have their pages set to private and don’t have just friends and family is crazy. friends as in ppl you ACTUALLY know.”
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