Solange Knowles had a rocky start on Instagram. She was a user for a brief period of time last year, but the songstress says she had good reason to ditch the photo-sharing app (at least for a while): Trolls were targeting her young son.
The 27-year-old sat down for an interview with entertainment blog Concrete Loop last week and opened up about how she deals with negativity online as a person in the public eye.
"I think just because I've been in the industry for so long ... I've always been a part of a very accessible kind of movement of technology," she said. "I was on Twitter very early on. I don't know, a part of me just kind of turns an eye to it, and a part of me really feels like the humanization of artists has really just been stripped down."
Speaking about Instagram, Knowles said:
I think one of the reasons I actually went off of Instagram ... is because I would post pictures of my son or of my friends, and they would be criticized. And my whole thing is that I'm completely, fully capable of handling negativity for myself. [But] to put that kind of access to negativity behind people who didn't even ask for it was really troubling to me.
The "Love In the Parking Lot" singer, whose child is 8 years old, first joined Instagram under the handle @mydamnstagramsss last year and then deleted the account a short time later. She tweeted in July that she had left the site: "Bye Bye Instagram :) That was short lived, but fun!"
Apparently, she has been Instagramming from another handle, @saintrecords, since July 24, 2012. On Tuesday, she tweeted a link to the account for fans.
Her sister, Beyonce, has been careful about sharing images of her 21-month-old daughter, Blue Ivy, on social media. For her Tumblr, Beyonce I Am, the superstar posts only strategically posed photos of the child and doesn't show her full face.
Many parents -- famous or not -- grapple with the issue of whether to share pics on social media.
Nicole Feliciano, of the blog Mom Trends, chooses not to share any photos of her daughters, 8 and 5. As her kids get older, she is teaching them more about digital sharing. For instance, she explained to her older child that even if you delete something online, it still exists.
"We're trying to use social media education for them as well," she told CNN, "so they know about permanence and about being very responsible with every image that you put up."
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