Is it safe to share videos of children on TikTok?
With 1.5 billion monthly users, TikTok has become one of the world’s most popular social media platforms. Users have flocked to the platform to watch quick, entertaining content from people around the world. Much of this content includes parents sharing videos of their children.
Sharenting, or social media sharing of children by parents, is not a new phenomenon; for years, parenting bloggers and influencers have been creating content on platforms like Instagram. However, TikTok can enable parenting content to reach a broader audience than ever before.
“People are sharing information about their children, sometimes really intimate information,” says Sophie Stephenson, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Computer Sciences. “Because it’s TikTok, it is going out to very large audiences and often to people who aren’t seeking it out.”
Stephenson, Ph.D. x’25, a member of the Security and Privacy Research group, has published new research on sharenting on TikTok and its privacy implications. This research, funded by the NSF, is among the first of its kind, reflecting the goal of the School of Computer, Data & Information Sciences to connect technology and humanity. Entering her fifth year of the Ph.D. program, Stephenson conducts research on human-centered security and privacy, examining the interpersonal elements of these topics.
She also focuses on technology-facilitated abuse, analyzing how technology is used in intimate partner violence. In her work with Madison Tech Clinic, she helps support survivors of intimate partner violence, sexual violence, and other forms of technology-related abuse.
While sharenting research has been conducted on platforms like Facebook and Instagram, little research has been conducted on TikTok. While researchers are beginning to study the ethics of TikTok, Stephenson’s work on privacy in regards to TikTok is some of the first of its kind.
Stephenson’s advisor, Assistant Professor in Computer Sciences Rahul Chatterjee, says that her work represents a shift in the field towards a more human-centered approach to cybersecurity.
“Traditional cybersecurity research has focused primarily on the risks to machines and the data stored on them, often overlooking the risks and harm technology can cause to individuals. A new time of cybersecurity research is emerging that addresses this oversight by placing humans at the center of security and privacy concerns. Sophie’s research aligns with this new approach, emphasizing the importance of human-centric cybersecurity and safety,” says Chatterjee.
Stephenson says that TikTok is brimming with data and offers abundant research opportunities across various fields.
“I hope that more people do research on TikTok because it is really rich data,” Stephenson says. “There are so many discussions happening on TikTok in real-time, which means there is potential for us to learn a ton about many different topics. I would encourage other researchers to use it as a valuable data source.”
Stephenson and her co-authors, Christopher Nathaniel Page, Miranda Wei, Apu Kapadia, and Franziska Roesner, watched hundreds of TikTok videos to examine some common sharenting patterns on TikTok. Their research found three main types of consequences of sharenting on TikTok: online consequences, offline consequences, and violations of principles like privacy and consent.
Online consequences include issues like people harassing or making fun of children online, as well as viewers forming parasocial relationships with the child. Offline consequences refer to viewers using information posted about a child online to get close to the child offline in malicious ways, bullying from peers, or potential mental health concerns.
Finally, principles violations include the perceived ways in which sharenting violates children’s privacy, their autonomy, or their inability to provide informed consent.
Stephenson also says there are also benefits to sharenting, including posting their children’s achievements, community building and sharing with friends and loved ones. Her research team also found productive discussions on TikTok about sharenting, with creators debating what is acceptable, why it matters, and the implications of parents leaving a digital footprint for their children.
“There is essentially some explicit norm-setting happening on the platform about what creators can and can’t do, and we thought that was really cool,” says Stephenson. “Awareness is important so it’s great that they are having conversations among creators, because it is making people think critically about this practice.”
Is it possible for sharenting content to flourish on TikTok while maintaining children’s privacy? According to Stephenson, there are a few ways to achieve this.
One common way parents helped maintain their children’s privacy was by covering their children’s faces in videos using emojis, physical objects, or even masks. Another way is asking children what they are okay with—in other words, getting explicit consent.
However, the best way to maintain children’s privacy on TikTok, Stephenson says, is to share videos on a private account.
“It’s definitely preferable to share on those private platforms, and it mitigates a lot of the risks. But you still have to be thinking about what you’re sharing, who can see it, and what the impacts are going to be,” Stephenson says.
Chatterjee says that Stephenson’s research is important to help understand how technology is interleaved in our daily lives.
“Technology has given us new ways to communicate with friends, family, neighbors, and the world. However, users often fail to recognize the difference between sharing their children’s stories with a neighbor and posting them on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, or TikTok. The uncontrolled reach and persistence of information on social media pose significant challenges and risks,” says Chatterjee.
Learn more about the Madison Tech Clinic.