It’s every parent’s worst nightmare: a picture or video of your child that you posted on social media ends up on a sexually explicit website.
spoke to several mothers who have seen firsthand the downside of “sharing” – the term used for parents who share a lot of children’s content online.
Some have had their children exploited by pedophiles—who are increasingly sophisticated with technologies like AI—or turned into cruel memes by trolls, or have their identities stolen by hackers.
These scenarios have been highlighted in a new ad designed to warn parents of the dangers of over-sharing on social media.
Recent studies show that the picture of the average child is shared online 1,300 times before the age of 13, and the ads suggest it only takes a photo and AI to recreate innocent children in ways most parents never imagine could imagine.
The ad revealed that it only takes a photo and an AI to ruin a child’s future. A nine-year-old girl named Ella served as an example. This photo was manipulated with AI to make her an adult and to warn about the dangers of “sharing”.
Leah Plunkett, author of SHARENTHOOD and an associate professor at Harvard Law School, told : “AI tools now flooding the digital world to revise photos and videos and create animations are extremely exciting and fun. ”
“They also increase the risk that bad actors will repurpose a child’s image to hurt and threaten them.”
‘More children are particularly vulnerable to digital privacy breaches and damages because they have their whole lives ahead of them.’ They are at a unique stage of development.’
Social media is a place where people share their happiest moments with the world, but those cherished moments can fall into the hands of pedophiles and sick digital pranksters.
Meredith Steele, from Maine, told how her two children, a boy and a girl, were digitally abducted in 2021.
“I had no intention of being a public figure online when the pandemic started,” Steele said.
Meredith Steele discovered her children were digitally abducted in 2021. An Instagram account stole photos of her and showed her kids around like they were her own
“I posted a lot of videos and they blew up.”
Like most parents, Steele said she’s not good at dealing safely with people interested in her life.
“The first year I started posting online, I shared videos of my family’s activities,” she said.
“You know, my kids are cooking in the kitchen or just regular stuff, even they weren’t even really a part of my actual social media content.”
“It was just pictures here and there of what we were doing in our daily lives.”
However, the affectionate posts Steele shared turned into a nightmare for her and her family when she was tipped off about an Instagram account with 5,000 followers filled with pictures of her children.
“I had posted a video of my family going to dinner and I had tagged the restaurant we were at,” Steele said.
“The next day, the restaurant manager texted me. And she said, “There’s a page with photos and videos of you and your kids having dinner at the restaurant.” And they tagged the restaurant, but it’s not your page.”
Steele found the account and saw pictures of her family filling up the person’s page for about six months.
“They either recorded my Instagram stories on screen or saved the photos and gave my kids new names and new identities because we were doing all these things that scared me so much,” she said.
A daycare worker taught Vitaly and Anastasia Zhadina Burshteyn’s son to pronounce profanity, which the worker recorded and posted the video online. The video went viral and practically turned her then two-year-old son into a meme
Natusha Zahm told how her then seven-year-old son thought he was talking to a six-year-old girl via Telegram, but it ended up being an adult who asked her son for topless photos
“The thought that a total stranger somewhere had a bunch of pictures of my kids on his phone and sort of built this whole identity around him scared me.”
Since then, Steele has stopped sharing content with her children and is now pointing out the dangers involved.
Parents in New Jersey also experienced their own horror with a video of their son, who was two years old at the time of the incident – although in this case they did not release the content.
Anastasia Zhadina Burshteyn told : “My son attended a local daycare in Hoboken that closed two years ago.”
“We specifically refused permission to post pictures of him online, but the then assistant director recorded a video of her teaching him to say ‘F*** you’ and has it on her personal social media page posted.”
“This video was picked up by third parties and shared everywhere, the day care center learned.”
The video, shared in October 2020, was picked up by satirical accounts and turned her infant into a viral meme.
“She was fired immediately and the daycare worked with us to remove the re-shared videos (my husband actually reached out to people to get the videos removed from Twitter).”
The advert for the dark warnings has garnered widespread attention on social media, showing that while photos can be memories for parents, they can fall into the wrong hands
Ella’s parents seem to be taking part in a social experiment: they go to the cinema and are amazed when they see how their daughter’s image has been manipulated using artificial intelligence
While these unfortunate events took place as a result of social media posts, the story of a Ukrainian mother serves as a warning to parents to monitor their children’s online activities.
Natusha Zahm told how her then seven-year-old son believed he was talking to a six-year-old girl via Telegram.
“One day he said he joined this blogger’s Telegram channel. “I didn’t like the idea – thought it was too early for him – but all his friends joined the chat,” Zahm told .
“The channel had about 1,000 kids chatting, so I figured it was just his friends and he was socializing.
I was sitting in the room and he came in and took off his shirt. He took pictures of himself and I asked him, “What are you doing?”
Her son explained that he met a girl on the channel who asked him for a topless photo.
‘[The profile picture] It is a six-year-old girl, shown from the waist up and topless, Zahm said.
“I could tell from the style and grammar that it wasn’t a child, it was an adult.”
She told her son to stop speaking to the person, but not before an explicit image was sent to his phone.
Zahm said the adult must have stolen the girl’s photo or chatted with the girl to get her photos.
Hackers can steal your child’s identity by sharing a photo of them online
Adult Ella tells her parents that the pictures could ruin her future. “A future where my identity is stolen, where I can go to jail for things I would never do,” Ella said
“This pedophile sent a picture of this girl completely naked and with her legs spread wide,” Zahm said.
“They must have chatted with the girl and taken nude pictures of her.”
My son was next to me and saw this picture and little did I know it would affect him the way it did. It felt like he was throwing up. I have blocked this user. I deleted everything.’
An incident in which AI was used to blackmail a teenager was told to by Yaron Litwin, who works at Canopy – a digital parenting app that detects and blocks pornography on every single website on the internet.
The boy, who enjoyed going to the gym, shared a picture of himself shirtless on a workout page.
“Somebody could then take that picture and edit it.” [with AI] “And come back and blackmail that teenager,” Litwin said.
“And when that happens, it’s so shocking and just so devastating for this young teenager.” Often they are very. They don’t go to them, not even to their parents. They’re trying to deal with it on their own.
However, the final warning Ella gives to her horrified parents watching in the crowd is that she doesn’t want her photos to be used as child pornography
“Often the blackmail actually consists of sending additional explicit or nude photos.”
“There are three things to really think about.”
“One is the amount of time they might take.” [a social media platform.] “Two is the content they’re exposed to and three is who’s on the other side, and Canopy helps manage and protect and has the power.”
Created by Dutch T-Mobile subsidiary Deutsche Telekom, the ‘Without Consent’ ad tells the story of Ella, whose parents shared their entire life on social media.
The parents seem to be taking part in a social experiment: they go to the cinema and are amazed to see that their daughter’s image has been manipulated using artificial intelligence.
“With just one photo and AI, we created an adult Ella,” who appeared on the theater’s big screen.
An AI system then altered the image of young Ella to create the young girl as an adult.
“Hey mom, hey dad, it’s me Ella,” digital adult Ella said.
She goes on to explain how the images her parents shared on social media can be made and used by anyone to create a horrific future for them.
“A future where my identity is stolen, where I can go to jail for things I would never do,” Ella said.
“Imagine my credit being destroyed dad or my voice copied to scare you mom.”
“I don’t want to become a meme that gets humiliated by everyone at school.”
The clip then shows Ella’s body with another person’s face saying, “You should kill yourself you fucking loser.”
However, the final warning Ella gives to her horrified parents watching in the crowd is that she doesn’t want her photos to be used as child pornography.
A blurry image of young Ella uploaded by her parents on the beach appears on the cinema screen.
The innocent picture shows her frolicking in the water, but a predator took it from her parents’ social media page and uploaded it to an explicit website, which was then downloaded more than 7,800 times.
“What you share online is like a digital footprint that will be with me for the rest of my life,” Ella shared.
“Please mom, please dad protect my virtual privacy.”
While nine-year-old Ella might not have been affected in the real world, it has affected many parents.