It’s so hard to keep kids protected when you share photos of them on social media. But one woman on TikTok sparked an important conversation on "Generation Shared" — aka, parents publishing photos of their kids online — after claiming that she believed one parent was sharing some sort of risque content on purpose.
TikToker Sarah, who goes by @momsuncharted online, said she was stunned when one of her followers asked her to check out an influencer's account and she saw some pretty disturbing things.
Sarah regularly talks about subjects such as child privacy and parents who take advantage of their kids for social media gain, but this most recent discovery really upset her.
“I’m at the point where it’s like when is it no longer exploiting and it’s literally pimping out your children,” she said in footage from April 3.
It was an Instagram page that led to a website where followers could pay to get photos of the influencer’s children.
These photos can run for as much as $125 a pop and feature a young girl and her friend wearing crop tops.
“Who the f— do you think is purchasing photo sets of two young girls for $125?” Sarah asked in front of a screengrab of the page. “Let it be known that these children are under the age of 13.”
She then showed another screengrab of other photo sets available on the website featuring the two girls wearing tight-fitting, skimpy black dresses. The set is called “Two Little Princesses.”
Viewers could also buy a photo set of the two girls eating ice cream — again wearing crop tops.
If that wasn’t creepy enough, one of the girl’s measurements was available on the website — “for anyone who wants to send merch?” the TikToker guessed.
“I can’t,” she added before rolling her eyes.
“This child also has a Patreon [account] but apparently the photos are with her mother — creepy,” she wrote in the video’s caption.
So far more than 1 million people have watched Sarah’s video — and agreed that this was so messed up.
"Oh my GODDDD! The pic packages are horrendous on their own, but once you showed the measurements I literally screamed. This is abuse!" wrote one person.
"Little black dress does NOT scream two little princesses," added another person.
"Surely that needs reporting to social services?" someone else wondered.
And most people chimed in that this wasn’t simply an innocent mistake.
"They know what they’re doing," one person commented.
"The way those girls are dressed and posed makes it very apparent that these ppl know exactly what they are doing," another person agreed.
"Absolutely no way this is innocent," someone else wrote.
In another video, Sarah responded to a commenter who asked if the other parent of the girl knew what was going on.
Sadly, the answer was yes.
“They are also offering personalized sets of their daughter on their own website,” the TikToker explained in the video. Those include photos of the girl in a bathing suit titled “Snake Print Swim” and something called “Red Room Selfie World.”
She said the child was confirmed to only be 11 years old, and Sarah was pretty confident that "the parents know” what they're doing.
“These parents know exactly who their audience is," she added. "It’s sick and it’s disturbing, but it’s the truth.”
That is why it's important to call it what it is: exploitation.
“The extent to which I see parents exploiting their own children for financial gain is deeply disturbing,” she continued in the comments. “Not to mention the child’s safety.”
