Accepting that its site is now at least 50 percent photos of kids, Facebook is finally letting you tag your kids in said photos.
If you’re a parent, you’re likely well-aware of the protocol. You post a photo of your cute little guy, and you tag your partner or spouse in the photo. That way, the photo is tied to both you and your partner and friends of both will likely see the photo in their feeds. Today, Facebook is changing that protocol.
Starting now, you can create a special tag for your child. It’s not a profile (those under 13 are technically forbidden to have profiles), but the tag will point people toward your kid’s new Scrapbook page. This is completely optional. If you want, you can keep tagging how you’ve always tagged. But if you’ve always wanted your kid to have its own Facebook presence, here’s your chance.
Here’s how it will work. If you want to create a Scrapbook for your kid, head to your profile, click “About” and look at your “Family and Relationships” section. There, you’ll have a choice to add a new Scrapbook. You can enter in your kid’s real name, initials, a nickname – whatever. If you wanted to create a scrapbook for your pets, I guess you could do that as well (update: pets confirmed).
Your next step is to choose whether or not you’re going to let someone else (presumably, your partner) have access to your kid’s Scrapbook too.
“Only you and [your partner] can tag [your child]. Tagging [your child] in a photo is just like tagging yourself and [your partner]. Your friends and [your partner]’s friends will be able to see it,” says Facebook.
More from Facebook on the Scrapbook privacy (there is none, just on each individual photo):
“You can tag your child in your photos or in other people’s photos. When you tag your child, anyone in the audience of the photo can see the tag just like any other tag. Tagging your child in a photo is just like tagging yourself, and will add your friends to the audience of the photo. If you’ve added a partner to your child’s scrapbook, your partner and their friends will also be added to audience of the photo.
“Your child’s scrapbook doesn’t have its own privacy setting, but the individual photos do. When people visit a scrapbook, they’ll only see a photo if they’re included in that photo’s audience. The profile and cover photo of your child’s scrapbook are visible to anyone who can see at least one photo in the scrapbook.”
Your friends will soon be able to follow your Scrapbook so they don’t miss any pics you post of aforementioned cute little dude.
Long story short, Facebook is giving parents a cleaner way to compile all of their kids’ photos on the site. It’s also forcing parents to declare they are parents and to whom – but what Facebook feature isn’t about gathering more data? This should be rolling out today on desktop, iOS, and Android.