Sharenting e abandono digital: implicações jurídicas da exposição excessiva de crianças e adolescentes por seus responsáveis

Abstract

This study investigates the phenomena of sharenting and digital abandonment, focusing on the legal implications of the excessive exposure of children and adolescents on social media by their parents or guardians, as well as of parental omission in monitoring their children's digital lives. It starts from the analysis that both phenomena, although distinct in nature, one commissive and the other omissive, constitute complementary faces of the same failure in the exercise of parental authority, converging toward the violation of the personality rights of individuals in a peculiar condition of development. The general objective of the research is to examine the legal repercussions of sharenting and digital abandonment in the Brazilian legal system, from the perspective of the protection of the fundamental rights of children and adolescents, verifying whether the current normative framework is sufficient to address such situations or whether regulatory gaps remain. To this end, the deductive method is used, through bibliographic, documentary, and case law research, with a qualitative approach and an exploratory-descriptive nature, encompassing the analysis of legal doctrine, national legislation, international child protection norms, and precedents of Brazilian courts. The study examines the legal framework of integral protection, the duties arising from parental authority and the duty of digital care, the rules of the Brazilian General Data Protection Law, the Digital Statute of the Child and Adolescent (Law No. 15,211/2025), and the requirements of parental civil liability, with emphasis on in re ipsa moral damages and on the analogical application of the thesis established in Special Appeal No. 1,159,242/SP, according to which loving is a faculty, whereas caring is a duty. It is found that the Brazilian legal system has advanced significantly by expressly recognizing the parents' duty to educate, guide, and monitor their children in the virtual environment. However, it is concluded that the protection provided is only partially sufficient, as gaps remain regarding the specific civil liability of parents for abusive sharenting and digital abandonment, the confrontation of which depends on the combination of legislative evolution, case law consolidation, and the diligent exercise of parental authority, guided by the best interests of the child and adolescent.