Mark Zuckerberg hid his children’s faces on Instagram. Should you do it?

() — When Mark Zuckerberg shared a photo of his family on Instagram on July 4, two things stood out: The billionaire CEO was wearing a striped cowboy hat, and his children’s faces were replaced with happy-face emojis.

Zuckerberg’s post was quickly criticized by some who saw the decision to hide faces as a reflection of his privacy concerns when sharing photos of his children online, despite having created massive platforms that allow millions of Other parents do just that.

Instagram’s parent company Meta has long been under scrutiny for the way it manages user privacy and the way its algorithms can be used to lead young users down potentially dangerous paths.

But the decision also highlights a broader trend among some social media users, and particularly high-profile individuals, to be more cautious about sharing identifiable photos of their children online.

For years, celebrities from Kristen Bell and Gigi Hadid to Chris Pratt and Orlando Bloom have blurred images or used emoji to protect their children’s privacy on social media. Zuckerberg had also previously posted headshots and side profile photos of his daughters instead of showing their entire faces.

It’s rarer for ordinary users to take a similar approach, but perhaps it shouldn’t.

“By showing us that you were careful not to share the location of your family or the identity of your children, you may be communicating to us that it is the responsibility of end users to protect themselves online,” said Alexandra Hamlet, a New York-based psychologist who closely follows the Impact of social networks on young users.

Meta did not respond to a request for comment.

Few things are as central to the parenting experience as showing numerous, possibly embarrassing photos of your children to anyone who stops to look at them. But over the years, a growing number of parents and experts have raised concerns about the risks of sharing these photos on social media, including the possibility of exposing children to identity theft and facial recognition technology, as well how to create an internet history that could follow them into adulthood.

Some parents decide to restrict what they share about their children or limit it to less public platforms. Others take smarter measures, like hiding their children’s faces.

Leah Plunkett, author of “Sharenthood” and associate dean for Learning Experience and Innovation (LXI) at Harvard Law School, says that blocking a child’s face is symbolic of giving them control over their own narrative. .

“Every time you post about your kids, you’re preventing them from telling their own story about who they are and who they want to become,” she says. “We grow up doing mischief and making more than one mistake, and we grow better having made them. If we lose the privacy of adolescents and children to play and explore, and to live and through trial and error, we will deprive them of the ability to develop and tell stories (on their own terms)”.

Notably, Zuckerberg did not hide his young daughter’s face, which could suggest less concern about risks to a baby’s face than a young child’s. However, Plunkett said that artificial intelligence technology can be used to track changes in a face over time and could later be able to match any child, even a baby, to an image of them when be older.

Plunkett believes that social media companies can do more, like offer a setting that automatically blurs children’s faces or prevent any photo featuring a child from being used for marketing or advertising purposes.

For now, however, it remains the responsibility of parents to limit or refrain from sharing photos of their children online.

“It’s not just about parents: grandparents, coaches, teachers, and other trusted adults should also keep kids out of photos and videos to protect their privacy, safety, current and future opportunities, and their ability to craft their their own story about themselves and for themselves,” he said.