200 likes. That's what your kid's privacy was worth.

There's something that's been bugging me and I can't stay quiet on it anymore.

Every day I see creators, influencers, "brand builders" plastering their kids all over social media. Bath time clips. First day of school breakdowns. Tantrums in the grocery store. Medical appointments. Moments that belong to the child, packaged up and handed to millions of strangers for engagement.

Let's say what this actually is. It's not documenting memories. It's not "sharing the journey." It's using a human being who can't consent as a prop for your personal brand. Amount of shame felt? Zero. Gotta get them likes!

If you've got a content strategist, or a team telling you to put your kids in your content because "it performs well," you should be terrified of those people. They are telling you to trade your child's safety for metrics. They don't care about your kid. They care about impressions. Fire them. Immediately. Anyone who looks at your child and sees a content opportunity is not someone you want anywhere near your family.

Your 3-year-old didn't agree to be a content strategy.

I spoke to a prison guard recently. Works at a maximum security facility. What he told me should make every parent delete their entire feed.

Inmates trade pictures of children like trading cards. Your kid's beach holiday photo. Your daughter's first dance recital. That "cute" bath time reel. These images circulate in places you don't want to imagine. Now, with AI, they don't even need explicit content to start with. They take innocent photos of your children and age them. Manipulate them. Generate things I won't describe here. From the photos you willingly uploaded for 200 likes.

Still think that carousel post was worth it?

Every photo, video, location tag, birthday post with their full name and age. That data gets harvested. Companies like Meta collect everything. Your child has a digital footprint and a data profile before they've even started school. You didn't give them a digital presence. You gave them a digital prison sentence.

These parents know the risks. They know the algorithm rewards kids in posts. videos, and IG stories. They know the comments section is full of people they'd never let within 100 metres of their child in real life. They post anyway because the likes feel too good. The brand deals feel too good. The identity of being a "parent creator" feels too good.

So when it goes wrong, and it will, I have zero sympathy for the parent. None. That's on you. You deserve every bit of it.

If you've already done it, I'm not going to sugarcoat this. You can't undo it. Those photos have been scraped, cached, stored, redistributed in databases you'll never have access to. What's coming next is worse. AI is evolving faster than any regulation can keep up with. The tools that exist today to manipulate, track and profile your child are nothing compared to what's being built right now.

So stop. Today. Not tomorrow. Not after one more post. Now. You can't fix what's already out there, but you can stop feeding the machine.

The best time to stop was before you started. The second best time is right now.

That's my rant. Where's the YouTube tip in it? Simple, don't farm your kids out for the validation of strangers.

Me