system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: We should not post baby pictures on Facebook or Instagram

I'm an expectant dad (we're 8 weeks out!). The baby's mother and I have been having discussions on and off about whether to post baby pictures to Facebook.

I'm fairly strongly in the "no" camp. I feel that Facebook doesn't do a particularly good job of protecting privacy. 

* Consent. By posting pics I feel like we're making decisions for the adult version of our child that the child cannot consent to (having the pics available on the internet). I know many adults who choose not to have a Facebook or other social media footprint and don't want their images posted on Facebook and so forth. And I respect their wishes. So I feel by posting my child's pictures on the internet before he/she is old enough to consent, I'm depriving him/her of that choice when he/she reaches that point. Obviously, once something's on the internet, it's there forever.

* The future of technology. We have no idea where this stuff is going. Facebook is a for-profit enterprise and they will use these images in whatever is the best interest of their shareholders. Machine learning is going to become very powerful in my child's lifetime and technology will probably be able to age those baby pictures into fairly accurate representations of adult selves. There is metadata collected with every photo. The government continues to demand more information from Facebook, Google, and other big players. But they can’t give to the government what they don’t have.

* Identity theft. I wouldn’t want *my* full name and date of birth anywhere public on the internet, so making an announcement like “Welcome Adam Brandon Charlie Smith, 7lbs 8ozs born December 14, 2017” seems pretty insane to me. Why not post the kid’s SSN while you’re at it?

Opposing arguments I've considered:

* We make decisions for our children all the time without their consent. e.g. what we feed the child, how we educate it, the values/religion we give it etc. Sure, this is true, but most of them are done out of love and care and in the perceived best interests of the child. I can't see a strong argument that posting the child's pictures online without his/her consent benefits the child in any significant way. It only gives the parents a dopamine rush when they get “Likes”.

* You can manage Facebook privacy. Sure, to some extent, if you trust Facebook. But is there a good reason to trust Facebook? Also, I've noticed that even when a post is set to "friends-only", the Share button still appears for the friend, so they can share the images. So even if you keep your pics private, once Grandma hits “Share", it's out there permanently.

* Sense of community. A big part of having a first child is celebrating it with friends and family around the world. My spouse is worried that the older generation of her family is not very tech-savvy and that she will be unable to share with them. I've tried to argue that we can post pictures on sites like Flickr or Photobucket or Google Photos may have less long-term presence than Facebook, but this is unclear still.

* Everyone else is doing it. I’ve read and heard many people say, “I don’t know anyone who doesn’t post pics of their baby online”. I consider this a fallacy because everyone probably *does* know many people who have Facebook accounts but *don’t* post their kids online, but by definition they don’t show up as much in your Facebook feed, so it’s not immediately apparent that you have these friends. In other words, one notices that Sam and Sally are posting new baby pictures every day, but one doesn’t notice that Tim and Tammy never post pictures at all.
gpt
Are you planning to take her/him to a daycare, what about a park, or parades, or fireworks? When he/she starts to go to school will you allow sports? These are all ways where your child will develop an online presence with pictures. So not posting any of your own photos on Facebook won't stop your child from having their picture on Facebook. As long as it's not like naked bath pictures the pictures really aren't embarrassing as everyone has these pictures. 

As far as age modification to pictures, that's already a thing and if the government really wanted pictures of everyone they have ways of doing it that is beyond using Facebook.