A six year old has been labelled the most beautiful girl in the world [Photo: Instagram/anna_knyazeva_official]
While most six-year-olds are playing with
slime, Smiggle stationary and swapping Pokemon cards, Anastasia Knyazeva is busy building a high profile modelling career that has seen her hailed the ‘most beautiful girl in the world.’
Having starred in a number of campaigns in her native Russia, Anastasia, who is known as Anna and represented by President Kids Management, has also amassed over 500,000 followers on her Instagram account, which is run by her mother.
Anna’s mum regularly posts snaps of her daughter on shoots and fronting campaigns, as well as an occasional behind-the-scenes peek at their lives.
And each shot receives hundreds of comments about the youngster’s doll-like features and striking blue eyes.
Anastasia is following in the footsteps of French model Thylane Blondeau, now 16, who was famously named the world’s most beautiful girl at the age of six – and went on to become the youngest model to star in French Vogue.
Another young Russian model, Kristina Pimenova, was also described as the most beautiful girl in world at the age of just nine. The mother of the young model, who is now 11, was forced to hit back after she was accused of sharing provocative pictures of her daughter to social media.
Some followers have criticised the child’s mother for allowing her daughter to have a social media account at such a young age.
So how young is too young for children to be exposed to social media?
While Instagram accounts for babies and young children are undeniably cute, some experts believe introducing little ones to a world of ‘likes’ could be opening them up to a digital world they didn’t sign up for.
“The problem with baby branding is that firstly you are sharing information about them without their permission and secondly you are creating a voice which isn’t actually theirs, and this means that people are getting to know you and not your child,” explains psychologist Emma Kenny .
The most obvious danger is that of security. “Sharing pictures, media and social content online isn’t very safe statistically and with recent figures suggesting that grooming on line is at pandemic levels, protecting your child needs to be a parents priority.”
The issue of consent also needs consideration. Though it’s tempting to share every single moment of your child’s life, it is worth thinking ahead to when they become a teenager and might not be so fond of that shot in the bath.
The fact is that young children can’t give their consent to having every detail of their life posted to social media and therefore it’s impossible to know what they will think about it all when they get older.
“As your child grows up, they may enjoy reading all the sweet comments from nice followers, but equally they will be open to online abuse and analysis and for a developing child this can be disastrous for self esteem,” explains Emma Kenny.
Parent Zone ’s editor, Gemma Taylor,
believes there are some guidelines that need to be adhered to if parents are thinking of setting up social media profiles for their little ones.
“As Parent Zone’s research with Nominet showed, parents love sharing images of their kids on social media, with mums and dads posting on average 11-20 images a month,” she says.
“It’s natural for parents to want share special moments with friends and family.”
But you do have to be careful, particularly once your child gets older.
“Our research showed that over a quarter of parents (28%) admitted they had never thought to check if their child minded them uploading images of them online. I think this raises an interesting conversation around consent,” Gemma Taylor continues.
“We’ve already had a teenager in Austria suing her parents for sharing images on social media , and French lawyers have warned parents they could be violating that country’s privacy laws by doing the same.”
“Adults need to be aware that as children grow up, they may not want their formative years exposed in such a public way. It’s also hard to control images once they are posted online, so, before uploading, it’s good to consider, ‘is this in the best interests of the child?’
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