Who’s protecting the ’beautiful, happy children’ growing up online in influencer videos?

As another U.S. state updates laws protecting kids of content creators, some say Canada’s laws are lagging

Mommy bloggers. Family vloggers. Kid-fluencers. Sharenting (new window).

There are any number of cute terms to describe the modern parenting phenomenon of sharing your children’s lives online — and in the case of monetized influencers, making a hefty profit off them.

But there’s been a recent backlash to the sharenting trend, sometimes led by the kids of influencers (new window) themselves, and now some U.S. states even adding legal protections for children of online content creators (new window).

It’s part of a growing reckoning (new window) about the dark side to those cute and funny videos of everyday parenting life.

In Canada, despite some recent efforts to keep young people safe online, such as the Online Harms Act (new window), current laws are lagging when it comes to the performative online work of children, explains Vass Bednar, the executive director of the Master of Public Policy Program at McMaster University in Hamilton.

I haven’t seen any policy progress on this or even policy attention in Canada, Bednar told CBC News.

And maybe this is a generational problem, but we would still benefit from legislation in the meantime. Viewing your child as a potential way to monetize or perhaps get free stuff is, I think, so delicate and fraught.

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Bednar admits that, like so many parents, she watches the cute influencer videos and funny reels when they come across her feed. Because there’s a community to it, she explains. And as many studies and reports (new window) have pointed out, modern parenting can be extremely stressful and isolating (new window).

But you start to wonder, Bednar said, what is that like for those beautiful, happy children?

‘Building their brand … off their children’

On Tuesday, Utah — a hot bed of family influencer culture (new window) with its large, nuclear families and religious lifestyles — signed a law (new window) that gives adults a path to scrub from all platforms the digital content they were featured in as minors and requires parents to set aside money for kids featured in content.

Under Utah’s H.B. 322 Child Actor Regulations (new window), online creators who make more than $150,000 US a year from content featuring children will be required to set aside 15 per cent of those earnings into a trust fund that the kids can access when they turn 18.

This follows the child abuse conviction of Ruby Franke, a mother of six who dispensed parenting advice to millions on YouTube before her arrest in 2023. She was sentenced to up to 60 years in prison for her abuses (new window), which were motivated by religious extremism and included starving her children. Due to Utah law, she can only serve up to 30 years.

Her now-ex-husband and some of her children had backed the child actor regulations bill.

While Utah’s move comes out of an extreme and chilling case, experts have pointed (new window) out that even parents with no intention of harming their children can exploit them due to the profit and fame that can come with influencer culture.

These parents are building their brand, and in turn their wealth, off of their children, noted a 2023 paper (new window) in the Chicago Journal of International Law.

Utah’s new law follows several other U.S. states that have added certain safeguards to the largely unregulated content-creation industry in recent years. Illinois, California and Minnesota have enacted laws protecting the earnings of young creators, and Minnesota’s law includes a similar provision to Utah’s that allows content featuring minors to be taken down.

Canada’s laws fall short

Children working in entertainment is certainly not new. But while there are existing protections for child performers, Canada does not have any legislation that extends to children featured in social media content, explained Ava Smithing, a youth fellow at the Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy at McGill University.

Yet, this form of legislation is crucial, she told CBC News.

And while Utah’s new law suggests progress is being made, Smithing says she’d like to see Canada go a step further than making parents set aside 15 per cent of earnings because it’s not enough to be a disincentive given how much money influencers can make.

It’s like a drop in the bucket, she said.

Canada’s existing provincial labour laws fall short when the employer is the parent, says Bednar.

For instance, Ontario’s 2015 Protecting Child Performers Act (new window) sets out the requirements for employing child performers, but presumes some other entity is employing the child, she said. And there are rules about ensuring kids get adequate breaks, Bednar points out, but how does that apply when mom and dad are constantly filming your life?

And in Alberta and B.C., it’s unclear whether current employment regulations can apply to child influencers, notes a 2024 research paper (new window) published in the University of Victoria Law’s Appeal Publishing Society. In general, the paper concludes that the legislation needs clarity.

WATCH | Online harms act is an important starting point:

The rise and fall of mom-fluencers

Sharenting (new window) is a relatively new term to describe a concept that has existed since the 2000s, with the rise of so-called mommy bloggers and family influencers. But it increased dramatically (new window) during the pandemic, researchers have found.

Alongside this, family influencers who document their family’s daily lives on social media for revenue has skyrocketed in the last decade, according to the 2023 Chicago Journal of International Law research paper (new window). Some families can make as much as $40,000 US for a sponsored Instagram post, the paper notes.

And audiences seemingly can’t get enough of it, especially when it comes to those big Utah families. Just look at the success of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, an entire reality show on Hulu about eight Utah TikTok influencers that made #MomTok an entire culture. It was recently renewed for a second season (new window).

Now, amid cases like Franke’s, and as the children of influencers (new window) become old enough to speak out, there’s been a mounting backlash. Memoirs like The House of My Mother — written by Shari Franke, Ruby’s eldest daughter — have exposed the perils of influencer culture.

Articles have appeared in magazines like Teen Vogue, where anonymous child influencers describe the stress of having their parents as their boss. Nothing they do now is going to take back the years of work I had to put in, said one child YouTube star in a 2023 article (new window).

Some well-known momfluencers (new window) have shifted away from featuring their children online at all. For instance, TikToker Maia Knight, with 7.7 million followers, announced in 2022 that she would no longer be showing her twin daughters online.

I’m making a choice for my daughters to protect them, she said in a video on Dec. 23, 2022 (new window). “Am I going to lose followers? Yes, I’m going to. Am I going to lose eight million followers? I hope not. Maybe, but I doubt it.”

Of course, most parents out there aren’t influencers making their children perform online, aren’t buying new cars with their YouTube earnings, and may be keeping their social media more private. But Bednar says there are still important lessons here for all parents when it comes to child privacy.

That bigger question of what’s appropriate to share online, or should kid’s faces be blurred out, is important, she said.

Always having the awareness of a camera takes away an element of privacy and kind of an immersive nature of your childhood, if you’re also always thinking about how you look, or your expression, or kind of performing happiness, too.

With files from The Associated Press

This article is republished from RCI.