Protections for child vloggers: Who has the real influence?
By Tara Wasik
Nowadays, it feels like every kid wants to be a Youtuber. What’s rare is when a parent seems to want that even more than their child. Enter family vlogging. Family vlogging is a type of video blog that focuses on family content. Family vloggers engage in “sharenting” (a combination of ‘share’ and ‘parenting’), the practice of parents uploading information about their children for others online to consume. Issues regarding compensation, working conditions, and consent have circulated the family vlogging world as the genre has risen in popularity.
Firstly, general restrictions on child labor have been set in place by the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA). Basic guidelines for hazardous work, minimum wage, and appropriate hours have been set using the FLSA. However, federal child labor provisions do not apply to “children employed as actors or performers in motion pictures, theatrical, radio or television productions.” Vlogging does not explicitly fall under this category since this type of work is relatively new. Furthermore, there is a consensus that family vlogging does not adhere to the FLSA because it is not a production for motion pictures, theatre, radio, or television.
Instead, child entertainment labor laws are completely dependent on state legislation. The 1939 Coogan Law went into effect in California after child actor Jackie Coogan sued his mother and former manager on his 21st birthday upon realizing that all of his earnings were given to his parents. Because the original Coogan Law left many loopholes, industry groups successfully advocated for revisions in 2000. For example, California governs a working minor’s funds and creates fiduciary relationships between the parent and child, since minors can’t control their own earnings. These revisions also encompass what is commonly referred to as the Coogan Account, a blocked trust fund that sets aside 15% of a minor’s earnings. Many states have modeled similar legislation off the Coogan Law, including New York and Illinois.
While most states regulate child entertainment, some do not, including Kansas, Nevada, Tennessee, Utah, Wisconsin and more. Among these, there are further state-by-state specifications. For example, in Wisconsin, a child entertainer’s “employment can’t be in a roadhouse, cabaret, dance hall, night club, tavern or other similar place,” and Nevada requires that “casinos or resort hotels employing minors in the entertainment industry for more than 91 school days must, upon request, pay for tutoring or other equivalent educational services.” Additionally, only a couple of states, like California and Texas, have the stipulation that “courts may require a portion of earnings be set aside for the minor in a trust.”
Each state once again has their own process regarding hours worked. The breadth of regulated circumstances include Iowa’s specific provision that “children under age 16 may be employed as models, outside of school hours, for up to 3 hours a day between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m., not exceeding 12 hours in a month, with parental permission.” Then there are also conditions like Arizona’s requirement that child entertainers “are exempt from the law governing persons under the age of 16 if before the beginning of production, the production company provides the Department of Labor with the name and address of the person, the length, location and hours of employment and any other information required by the Department.” It is only natural that states that have higher amounts of working child entertainers, like California and New York, have more comprehensive laws. But encouraging other states to strengthen their protections, such as advocating for the 23 states that do not require work permits to reevaluate their positions, would be conducive to fostering a national norm.
Similar to child entertainment laws, states that have a greater entertainment scene are at the forefront of introducing and passing legislation to set monetary protections and mitigate potential harm that could result from a lack of regulation.
In August 2023, Illinois became the first state to enact a law ensuring financial compensation for minors who are featured in vlog content. 50% of all earnings from content featuring a child must be set aside until the minor turns 18. In May 2024, Minnesota lawmakers extended this sentiment by first requiring 30% of earnings to be set aside for a trust, then amended this by forbidding social media accounts from making money from videos featuring children under 14.
Similarly, in 2024, California passed the Child Content Creator Rights Act, demanding at least 15% of child featured video earnings be put in a trust. Child influencers are entitled to “a percentage of earnings based on how often they appear on video blogs or online content that generates at least 10 cents per view.”
Reflecting on these recent legislative actions, Karen North, clinical professor of communication at the University of Southern California explains, “it’s such a slow path toward regulating and having oversight over things that happen online that it’s kind of shocking.”
Ultimately, more state laws are being put in place to protect the financial rights of child influencers. Nevertheless, regulating the actual labor put into child vlogging is a trickier situation. It is difficult to track hours worked, and the ethics of child vlogging are constantly up for debate.
Unlike child actors, no safeguards are available to monitor working hours for child influencers. The American Bar Association found that Allie, a child YouTube star, faced parental pressure to work long hours recording and editing after she set up her advertising monetization account in her mother’s name.
Many stakeholders question or denounce the morality of child vlogging in its entirety, including former child influencers themselves. The infamous case of Ruby Franke sent shockwaves through the family vlogging bubble. Franke ran the YouTube channel sensation “8 Passengers,” where she documented her family life with her husband and six children. Some controversial content included refusing her children food as a form of punishment and relegating her son to sleep on a bean bag for months.
In an outrageous turn of events, Franke was arrested in 2023 for aggravated child abuse after one of her children escaped to a neighboring house for help. Held captive for months in business partner Jodi Hildebrant’s house, two of Franke’s children were reportedly emaciated and malnourished.
Since the conviction of Franke, Utah has added protections for children who appear in digital content. If an online creator makes more than $150,000 a year from child-centered content, 15% of the earnings must be set aside to a blocked trust until the child reaches 18. The eldest Franke daughter, Shari, impactfully labels herself “a victim of family vlogging” while testifying in court about the dangers of family vlogging. “There is never ever a good reason for posting your children online for money or fame,” she firmly states, “it is more than just filming your family life and putting it online. It is a full-time job, with employees, business credit cards, managers, and marketing strategies.” Whether child influencers can even consent to these large scale employment decisions is contentious.
Consent is given when “a person voluntarily and willfully agrees in response to another person’s proposition.” It is widely acknowledged that children cannot consent to many activities and procedures due to insufficient mental capacity, but the novelty of family vlogging has once more prevented the investigation of family vlog channel activity. Obtaining a minor’s informed consent to becoming an online public figure is not currently a legal obligation. Therefore, identifying the wants and intentions of child influencers is completely inconclusive.
While protections for child entertainment workers, like actors and singers, have progressed, these safeguards do not incorporate children who make content for family vlog channels. With up to 95% of American adolescents aged 13 to 17 reportedly using a social media platform, it is safe to say that social media is entrenched in our younger generation’s way of life. Therefore, the growth of social media usage aligns with the upswing in child vloggers, both in terms of amount and interest. Though advances in legislation are not keeping up at the same pace.
As the example with Allie showed, many children feel burdened by the financial responsibilities placed upon them. Minors are being placed in front of a camera as a spectacle of the world, with no guardrails to prevent abuse. Perhaps it is time to accelerate the onset of legal protections for child vlog influencers.
