This was also the case in this ruling by the District Court of The Hague on October 1, 2018.
In this case, the father of two young children aged 4 and 2 (in short) requested the court to order the mother to remove all video logs on social media in which his children appear. He also requested that the mother be prohibited from posting images in which the children appear and messages about matters concerning the children on publicly accessible websites. He also requested that a penalty be imposed.
The children's father bases his request on the fact that the children's mother posts vlogs of the children on publicly accessible social media, which he believes is contrary to the children's interests and their right to privacy. The father fears that the photos, videos, and messages about the children will circulate online and could therefore become the target of pedophilia and bullying. He wants to protect them from this.
The children's mother is a foreign woman who wants to use photos and videos to show her followers what Dutch culture is like, particularly how children are raised in the Netherlands. She has been able to turn this into a job and generates income from it. She is contesting the man's request. According to her, the children are used to having a camera around them and so far there has been no evidence that posting photos and videos has had any adverse effects on them. In addition, she believes that in today's society, where a large part of the world grows up with social media and where much education is provided through social media, she should not be required to stop posting photos or videos in which the children are visible.
The court disagrees with the woman and grants the man's request. According to the court, the mother has not sufficiently refuted the father's fears that the children will be bullied, suffer adverse consequences for their future social functioning and, to a lesser extent, be objectified by pedophiles. The court also considers this risk to be far from imaginary. The mother's assertion that there has been no evidence to date of adverse consequences of the invasion of the children's privacy does not alter this. Given the children's ages, 4 and 2, the court assumes that their comprehension and living environment are not yet such that they could have been consciously exposed to bullying or ridicule by third parties, in particular peers, that could be traced back to the vlogs. This may well be the case in the future. Furthermore, the court does not attach any weight to the (financial) interests of the mother herself. As an incentive to comply with the decision, the court also sees reason to impose a penalty of €500 per day that the mother fails to comply with the decision, up to a maximum of €25,000.
This article can also be found in the Youth & Education file
