On Legal Action Around Identity

21 Jul 2023 · 1 min

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In this excerpt, the speaker argues that children may eventually be able to sue their parents for the extensive sharing of their images and videos online, which could be deemed harmful to the child’s development and mental health. Citing the UK Children’s Commissioner’s finding that, on average, parents post about 1,300 photos or videos of a child over the first 13 years of life, the speaker highlights a moral dilemma: parents unintentionally construct an identity for their children that the children may later reject, especially as they turn to virtual gaming and virtual realities to express a freer sense of self. The speaker suggests that this moral issue could evolve into a legal one as societal language around harm expands.

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I think kids are going to be able to sue their parents for that in the future. I mean, honestly, because you know that we're into this, this language of harm now, you could in the future, as we go forward, argue that that is harmful. Harmful to me, harmful to my development, harmful to my mental health. You know, I say in the book about the UK Children's Commissioner's report that on average, over the first 13 years of a child's life, their parents have posted 1,300— Jesus— pictures and videos and photos. On social media. So it's one of the reasons that particularly kids of that age, who kind of start to go into virtual gaming, virtual realities, to express their own identities in a much freer, liberated way, because they feel the weight of the expectations from parents or society, and they need to escape that. You know, you've already created an identity for this kid to live up to. What if it can't? And what if it doesn't want to? At the moment, that's a moral dilemma, but I do think in the future that potentially can become a legal dilemma.