The Ethics of Not Showing Kids On The Internet

In this insightful video, Malcolm and Simone Collins dive into the complex ethical considerations surrounding parents showcasing their children on social media platforms. They explore the potential benefits and drawbacks of raising children in the public eye, addressing concerns about privacy, consent, and the long-term impact on a child's future. The couple discusses the importance of age-appropriate media exposure, the need for open communication and education, and the value of building a strong family brand in an increasingly connected world. They also touch on the role of social media followings in creating opportunities, fostering trust, and navigating a changing societal landscape. Throughout the conversation, Malcolm and Simone emphasize the significance of parental responsibility, adaptability, and the development of resilience in children growing up in the digital age.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] I claiming there are no ethical issues here? No, I'm very clearly not. I'm saying there are ethical issues, but what people on the other side of this argument are

pretending, which is just false in a lie is that there are no potential upsides for the kid from this. I'm doing is I am contrasting the upsides with the downsides . That they have the environment to start their lives with decent sized social media followings within wealthy intellectual circles, the doors that is going to open for them. And this is something that we also haven't talked enough about in society, social media followings and the ability to translate these into high value relationships.

Simone Collins: if we live in a future in which Society's current vetting systems are bankrupt and don't work anymore. The only way that you can really build trust and have people expect you to deliver on what you [00:01:00] promise is if they feel like they know you and can trust you and you're predictable because trust lies in predictability.

And the only way that they can know that is if they have some kind of access to your thought process or they have a parasocial relationship with you. And the only way to do that is if you have a very open and transparent media history.

Malcolm Collins: And we want to have kids whose lives matter. If you are afraid of people making fun of you online, Your life won't matter

Simone Collins: because

Malcolm Collins: you can't do anything publicly.

And it's very hard to change the world if you don't do things publicly

Would you like to know more?

Malcolm Collins: Hello everyone I am excited to be here with you today. Today. We are going to be talking about the ethics of putting children in media and the Considerations that need to go into this because a lot of people might look at what we are doing we are a very public family. We are in the news all the time these days which is funny because

our channel is medium size, but not really correlatory to how [00:02:00] publicly famous we are getting. But again, just this last weekend, like the big three page front page piece in the guardian. And then a bunch of follow up pieces to that and then trending and and so people are like, wow, your kids are in all of these, like in the Vice documentary, right?

This little baby right here is in the media because she is in this shot.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And I watch a lot of snark online. A lot of the snark there's a big theme and people criticizing parents who include their children in TikTok and Instagram and YouTube posts, et cetera. And whenever they include clips that they're criticizing, they blur out.

The poor baby's faces, because they've been included in the shot. And even when they're trying to critique the video, they themselves do not want to repeat the crime of putting a child's face online, which to a certain extent, I understand the basics of where they're coming from.

For example on Google photos, which uses facial recognition, it is able to recognize the faces of. Baby versions [00:03:00] of very old people. Like it is very good at continuous face facial recognition. So it's not Oh, it's a, it's them as a baby. No one will know that this was them. Oh, actually they will.

There is no not parsing that, but also you and I have been talking a lot about this recently, this concept of privacy. Is such a farce and often to a great extent, trying to be more private and trying to hide is only subjecting. I'm going

Malcolm Collins: to push back on you here from their perspective.

Simone Collins: Yeah, you can say

Malcolm Collins: that as an adult privacy is a farce to adults. Okay. Yeah. Which is very hard to actually both be private and have an impact on the world in this current world. You can be private, but you are sacrificing your ability to impact society by doing that. Yeah. However, and I think that most like sane ethical systems believe some form of social impact is a personal obligation.

I can see how there could be like hedonist based ethical systems or like weird ones where like your family is literally the only thing that matters. But your [00:04:00] family is going to have to deal with downstream consequences of a society you didn't alter. So that's silly to me. So as an adult, yeah. I believe that privacy is a silly thing to strive for, but you could keep our children from appearing in any media.

Like I could genuinely achieve that in the way that the world is structured today. So why Delta? Hmm. Okay. Now let's talk about the ethical position that they're arguing from, right? They're saying the child did not consent being in media. And therefore the child. should not be in media, right?

Which is a fairly stupid argument. Children do not consent to the vast majority of parental decisions made around them.

Simone Collins: They did not consent to broccoli. They did not consent to bedtime. They did not consent to. Exactly. Many things.

Malcolm Collins: So that's [00:05:00] just stupid. Like the consent argument around kids appearing in media is stupid.

Simone Collins: But they would argue broccoli and bedtime are good for you. Media is. But

Malcolm Collins: that's their judgment. And this is what we're fundamentally going to argue by the end of this video is that I suspect that the core value source in our society going forwards, especially like accreditation source with the universities, is Collapsing as trusted sources of accreditation.

Cause I've seen this more and more just nobody trusts the universities. Like they've gone way too far on DEI. They've basically become these extremist cults. Nobody really sees them as a good source of an individual's value anymore. Where do people. And then it's then what about like designer brands, no longer like this sort of scarcity around fancy clothes, no longer has value anymore.

It's what is luxury? What is value today? Because we have now, I think, cross correlated luxury with. Signs of this is somebody you should [00:06:00] pay attention to which is the way historically used to be the guy who walked into the village with all the beads on him and all the gold on him what he was showing Is I'm someone you should pay attention to you.

I am someone you should

Simone Collins: well really to boil it down someone who Actually has wealth or luxury has a scarce commodity. And right now branded luxury goods are not a scarce commodity. A lot of these other things, prestigious university degrees are becoming less scarce as a commodity. For example, there are a lot of people claiming that they have a Harvard degrees because they've gone to a Harvard extension program.

They just st