‘The day I upset the most popular man in television’ | Angela Mollard

Angela Mollard took aim at one of Australia’s favourite celebrity couples after they kept sharing pictures of their kids online. It wasn’t long before they gave her a call.

Usually I ignore phone calls that come with No Caller ID but for some reason this time I picked up.

It was Hamish Blake. The Hamish Blake. The funniest man on television and an adorable dad who makes elaborate home-baked cakes for his children.

Hamish was not happy with me.

It was 2016 and I had written a piece about “sharenting”, a new term for the practice of parents sharing photos, videos and personal stories of their kids on social media.

I focused on Hamish, his wife Zoe and their toddler son because back then they were enthusiastic exponents of the practice.

As I noted, through his parents’ Instagram accounts their son had more than a million fans and BuzzFeed was writing “stories” about him with headlines such as 29 Times Hamish Blake’s Son Was the Cutest Kid You’ve Ever Seen.

As I saw it, adults were fetishising the little boy, writing about how he was so cute he made their “ovaries hurt” and how they were worried about having a baby of their own because “what if he wasn’t as cute” as Hamish and Zoe’s child.

As a columnist, it’s my job to commentate on what I observe, to raise questions and to challenge the status quo.

‘As a columnist, it’s my job to commentate on what I observe.’ Picture: Rohan Kelly

Writing in the style of modern fable, I posed the idea that “sharenting” might seem like a fun and innocent thing to do but that it was a new practice and we couldn’t be sure that it wouldn’t be damaging to kids.

What if paedophiles shared pictures of toddlers, particularly if they were photographed naked in a bath or shower? Or what if this first generation of social-media kids grew up to resent the invasion of their privacy?

Didn’t they have the right to manage their own digital footprint?

The piece was highly divisive. It was picked up by multiple media outlets and thrashed out by their audiences. It was also discussed on The Project where Carrie Bickmore said she shared images of her kids because it made pictures snapped by paparazzi less valuable and allowed her to manage what was shared. Waleed Aly wasn’t so sure.

Hamish Blake and wife, Zoe Foster were once big fans of sharing pictures of their young kids online. Source: Instagram

But when Hamish rang me to question why I’d written the piece and why I’d focused on their family, I felt uncomfortable. But that’s an occupational hazard. As I’d said in the column, they were a hard-working, talented couple who made people laugh in a nice way that isn’t mean. I didn’t want to raise their ire.

Nevertheless, Zoe blocked me on Instagram.

Nine years later my nascent fears have been confirmed because while “sharenting” has become a cultural norm, experts say it can come at a significant cost to children’s privacy, safety and psychological wellbeing.

Increasingly these growing children are voicing concerns about the content their parents have shared, with one British study reporting that more than 70 per cent of teenagers feel their parents fail to respect their digital privacy. Almost 40 per cent admitted being embarrassed by content their parents have posted about them online.

In Australia, children are set to win the right to erase their digital footprints on their 18th birthday under a Children’s Online Privacy Code. Due to be set up by the end of next year, the code would empower kids to delete what the Australian Privacy Commissioner Carly Kind calls their “data shadow”.

While some of the 72 million pieces of data collected about a child by the age of 13 is gathered through online games, video messaging and apps, with companies set to face fines of $50m for breaching the new privacy code, plenty is also mined from parents’ posts.

As Kind says: “Sharenting is a challenging issue where parents share a lot of information about their children – how do children reclaim some of that control when they move into adulthood?”

Hamish no longer shares pictures of his parents online. Picture: Hanna Lassen/Getty Images for TV WEEK

While plenty argue that “sharenting” is innocuous and a widespread habit adopted by loving parents, an OECD report released in May sounded a warning. “Parents may disclose personal information without their children’s consent,” said the report. “Sharenting can also expose children to risks like online grooming, paedophiles and identity theft.”

Digital footprints can be created before a child is even born with research from Edith Cowan University finding that some parents posting ultrasound images expose their unborn children to identity theft risks. The study reported how cybercriminals can potentially piece together personal information from these posts, creating long-term vulnerabilities.

Interestingly the Blakes no longer show their children’s faces, posting pictures of them from behind, wearing sunglasses or, in one instance, with their faces masked by huge sticks of fairy floss. The Duchess of Sussex has taken a similar approach, massively ramping up the use of photos and videos of her children, Archie and Lilibet, in conjunction with the launch of her As Ever business. In pictures taken of the family at Disneyland, heart emojis concealed their faces which begs the question: why post at all?

Celebrating our children is natural but, as research over the last nine years has proved, my instincts were right and I no longer feel concerned about airing them.

Originally published as ‘The day I upset the most popular man in television’ | Angela Mollard