‘I found your parent’s Facebook’: The baby content generation fights back

In today’s Big Story podcast, born during the early days of Facebook, young people are now transitioning into adulthood and have begun to realize just how much of their lives their parents turned into content. In many cases, the content is embarrassing and humiliating, and they find themselves lacking ownership or control over it.

Some of these kids have convinced their parents to remove it. At times it has fractured their relationships. Others have even resorted to legal action to gain control of their baby pictures, or in the case of influencers, to recoup some of the money their parents earned from the content.

Kate Lindsay, culture writer and cofounder of Embedded, says there’s a lot of temptation for parents to use social platforms to document their family life.

“Social media is kind of a rare tool where you can show this really physical proof of your work, which is your child. And it’s the one place where you’re going to get the likes, the comments, the validation for the work you’re doing that you really don’t get anywhere else,” says Lindsay.

Now, as the kids of YouTubers and TikTokers grow up, the problem will only get bigger. So what rights do kids have to privacy when their parents post?

You can subscribe to The Big Story podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google and Spotify.

You can also find it at thebigstorypodcast.ca.