Latest / Mini Scroll / The Unregulated World of 'Child Influencers'

Transcript

The Unregulated World of 'Child Influencers' · Mini Scroll

0:00
This episode discusses the exploitation of minors online
0:03
and may be triggering or disturbing to some listeners.
0:07
On July 27th, 2019, Jacqueline Paul posted a video getting her
0:11
daughter ready for the day. Her daughter was less than a
0:14
year old at the time and the video, set to a children's song,
0:17
showed the baby getting bathed and having her hair brushed.
0:21
Mommy and baby videos are not uncommon on TikTok, but
0:24
something was different about this particular one.
0:28
The video did not feature the mother, Jacqueline.
0:31
Instead, the video was entirely about the baby, as if this Get
0:36
Ready with Me was from her perspective.
0:39
And the account that posted this video was not under the mother's
0:42
name or even a family name. The account was under the baby's
0:47
name, Ren Eleanor. The video reached over 300,000
0:51
views and Jacqueline continued to post content from the
0:54
perspective of Ren on this account almost every single week
0:58
for the next three years, building one of the biggest
1:01
followings in the history of child influencers at 17,000,000
1:06
followers on TikTok alone. While the content may have
1:10
seemed innocent at the start, the response to the videos put
1:13
out by Jacqueline have raised many red flags for mothers and
1:17
users alike. This, coupled with the recent
1:20
high profile arrest and sentencing of mommy, YouTube
1:23
Ruby Frankie has led to a very intense discussion about the
1:27
consequences of putting children online between parents and
1:31
platforms. Whose responsibility is it to
1:34
protect children posted to social media?
1:38
And what laws are in place to ensure that neither can exploit
1:41
the vulnerable little humans in this equation?
1:45
From Centennial World, I'm Lauren Meisner, and this is
1:49
Infinite Scroll, a podcast about Internet culture, the creator
1:53
economy and how social media is shaping.
1:55
Gen. Zed, welcome back to Infinite
1:58
Scroll, everyone. All right, so this is a pretty
2:02
serious and heavy episode. It actually could be the
2:05
heaviest, most intense episode that this podcast has ever done.
2:09
Also, if you guys are watching on YouTube, I'm really sorry if
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the lighting is going in and out.
2:13
I don't know what is going on. I feel like I changed the
2:15
setting on my camera and it's going from like yellow to
2:18
bright. Anyways, I'm sorry about that.
2:21
But yes, this is going to be a very serious episode, so I
2:24
wanted to bring you some good news before we get in to it.
2:29
So I did tease the little Easter egg last week about my plans to
2:37
bring back viral news and how I'm going to be doing that.
2:39
And some of you guys did find it.
2:42
So I'm very excited to announce that in two weeks I'm going to
2:46
be launching something called Mini Scroll.
2:50
So this is a daily podcast. Monday to Thursday it will be
2:55
like a 10 to 15 minute episode every day of the news from the
3:01
day before. So that is how you guys will get
3:03
the news from me every day. I kind of I was going back and
3:07
forth. I was like do I find a Co host?
3:09
Do I try and do it myself? I know you guys missed the
3:10
conversational element so much and I'm really sorry.
3:14
Like there's honestly nothing I can do about it.
3:15
I obviously can't have a conversation with myself.
3:18
So you know, until I can get more Co hosts and things like
3:22
that, Infinite Scroll is more polished and more serious than
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it used to be. Obviously because it's scripted
3:29
and mini Scroll will be much more fun and hopefully
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lighthearted depending on the news, but it will be much less
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scripted. So you guys will get that kind
3:38
of like personality from me in mini Scroll and you will also
3:42
get me every single day. So it will be Monday to Thursday
3:45
and then Infinite Scroll will drop on Fridays, so five days a
3:48
week. That is so freaking wild.
3:50
So that is going to start April 2nd.
3:53
So that's obviously a Tuesday, but the Monday is Easter Monday
3:57
weekend, whatever that holiday is.
3:59
So yes, the first week will be 4 days and then following that it
4:02
will be 5 days. So I'm so excited.
4:05
I cannot wait to be bringing you guys back in.
4:08
I feel like so many of you have stuck around through this
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transition with me, but I just really wanted to say like thank
4:14
you so much for, you know, sticking by me and like seeing
4:18
it through. And I knew that bringing you
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more content was the way to say thank you like legitimately.
4:24
And I'm excited to get the engagement back up to get you
4:27
guys excited about, you know, this podcast again.
4:30
I'm really hoping that Mini Scroll will be the solution to
4:34
that. So Mini Scroll will still be on
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the regular Infinite Scroll RSS feed so you don't have to go and
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subscribe anywhere else. It will also be on the YouTube.
4:42
So like everything that you're already subscribed to, Mini
4:45
Scroll will just show Go up there.
4:46
All right, Well, on that note, as always, Please remember to
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rate, review and subscribe. It helps me so much.
4:52
It means so much to me when I read your guys reviews.
4:55
It's just like literally the thing that keeps me going.
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Please sign up to our newsletter, which is also called
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Infinite Scroll. On Wednesdays we send out a
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Join our Geneva group, which is also called Infinite Scroll,
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Internet culture and creator drama NT.
5:20
And you can chat with me. OK, so on to the reviews that we
5:22
got this week. So Foxy friend from Great
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Britain says, I love Infinite Scroll.
5:27
I listen to a different episode every night and is always the
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highlight of my day. I'm also really enjoying the new
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format of episodes. I came across the podcast on
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TikTok and I love this podcast so much.
5:37
Thank you Lauren. Thank you so much.
5:39
Honestly. Listening to 1:00 every single
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night? That is scary.
5:44
That's a scary thought. Nothing would make me happier
5:47
than being able to delete like the first, maybe two, probably
5:50
two or three seasons. But thank you so much for being
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such a loyal listener and sticking it through.
5:56
And I cannot wait. I'm gonna have 5 new episodes
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every single week. Fresh new episodes for you to
6:01
listen to every single night before you go to bed, Marissa on
6:04
Spotify said great episode. I appreciate the business
6:06
updates. So interesting to revisit the
6:08
mood around cancel culture and expectations of influencers from
6:12
2022. I definitely feel the
6:14
temperature has cooled a bit. I completely agree.
6:17
It was really interesting for me to find an episode to post last
6:21
week to kind of like repurpose when I was off feeling not so
6:25
well. Because yeah, listening back to
6:28
some of our older episodes, ones that were prior to even just
6:31
like last year, at the beginning of last year, like things were
6:34
so have been so heated for so long, especially for basically
6:37
like as long as we've had this podcast.
6:39
I would say probably it's only been maybe like the last eight
6:41
months that things have really like chilled out.
6:43
But yeah, I completely agree, Very interesting.
6:46
And then Amber on YouTube says I've been looking for more
6:49
content on this topic relating to Gen.
6:51
Z being more private. Honestly, this is a great time
6:53
to update your old app. So many people are going more
6:56
and more private online lately. Loved the video.
6:58
Can't wait to see more from this podcast.
7:01
Jacqueline Paul began posting content of Ren on TikTok when
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she was less than a year old. Ren is now 4.
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In December 2020, Jacqueline told 3 News Now Omaha that she
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started the account as a way to save memories.
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But when the account grew to over 4 million followers before
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her daughter even turned 2, Jacqueline, a single mother, saw
7:21
the opportunity as a way to make money.
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Now we have discussed mommy vloggers and family channels
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numerous times on this podcast and I really considered if this
7:31
was the right topic to explore this week.
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I wanted to make sure that in discussing this topic I would be
7:37
providing new information for you guys, but also that this
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podcast would not be contributing to the alleged
7:44
exploitation of Jacqueline's daughter or any other children
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discussed in relation to this episode.
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For that reason, I have demonetized the YouTube video
7:56
and this episode is not sponsored.
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I will also not be including images or videos of any of the
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child influencers referenced in this.
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So if you watch on YouTube, this video will just be a lot of me
8:08
talking to you. Something that is worth
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exploring about this topic is that the account in question is
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not a family account and Jacqueline is not a mommy
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vlogger. The TikTok is an account made
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for a four year old which goes against the platform's terms of
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services that states users must be thirteen or older to have a
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TikTok account. The toddler is obviously not the
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one shooting and uploading videos of herself.
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This is a loophole that Jacqueline and other parents who
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have created accounts for their young children count on to
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protect themselves from having these accounts banned.
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So why then, if these accounts are only skirting by on a
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logistical loophole, does TikTok refuse to de platform them
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despite countless users reporting them?
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It comes down to the laws, or lack thereof, about posting
8:58
children on the Internet. But before we get into that,
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it's important to understand why users are worried about these
9:05
accounts and the children who star on them.
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One of the major arguments against children's accounts is
9:11
that parents are pandering to creeps online.
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They are frequently accused of deliberately posting suggestive
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content of their children, knowing it could end up in front
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of predators, as EJ Dixon writes for the Rolling Stone quote.
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To be clear, there is no evidence that Jacqueline is
9:27
exploiting Ren in any way. Rather, the concern seems to be
9:31
centered more on the type of content Jacqueline is posting,
9:34
such as a now deleted video of Ren playing with a tampon or Ren
9:38
taking a bath in a bathing suit. According to posts on a
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subreddit devoted to Ren that has more than 13,000
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subscribers, commenters have pointed out not only that such
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videos get more likes and saves than some of Ren's other videos,
9:53
but they have even tracked down the social media footprints of
9:56
some of Ren's followers, pointing to concerning comments
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they have made or other videos they have saved to indicate they
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may be sexually attracted to children.
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Commenters have also pointed to the existence of fan accounts
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for Ren and searches such as Ren eating corn dog and Ren
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scandalous outfits as evidence that she is being sexualized by
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a contingent of her followers. Though it may be true that much
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of the audience for child accounts are clucky women and
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mothers who find kids content cute, several creators who make
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anti mommy vlogger content argue that the parents running these
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accounts would also be aware that possibly a more significant
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portion of the audience is made-up of adult men.
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In July 2022, Business Insider reported finding photos of Ren
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widely shared by presumably her male followers on Pinterest.
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Quote Insider found several Pinterest accounts with male
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names that commented on images of Ren saying cute and adding
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heart eye emojis, or had pictures of her in folders
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alongside multiple pictures of other young girls and babies.
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One was titled Girls I Like, while another had several images
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of children tied up and gagged. Insider also noted that the
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videos Jacqueline posts of her toddler have an alarming number
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of saves quote One video from March 2022, for example, shows
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Ren in the bath, which was liked 880,000 times and saved 22,000
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times. Another, which is over 10
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million views, shows Ren using perfume, pretending to shave
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with a razor and mimicking inserting a tampon has been
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saved 385,000 times. Keywords that come up when
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searching the username Ren Eleanor include several terms
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that could be deemed suggestive or adult, including eating corn,
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dog crop, top tampon and role play.
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Again, this episode is not a specific look into Jacqueline
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and her daughter, but they are by far the most high profile
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example of this at this moment, so a lot of the existing
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coverage on this topic relates to them.
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Making matters worse, as noted by Rolling Stone, the online
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trend of fan accounts that republish content of public
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figures also occurs in this space.
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Many of these child influencers have fan accounts run by
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strangers who republish their content, spreading it to even
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more audiences with even less parental control over who is
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seeing it and the ways that they engage with it.
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And that's the crux of this issue.
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Once the child is online in any capacity, the parent has
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effectively lost control of that child's image.
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So while they may have comments turned off on their own account,
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or they may even be proactively wedding out suspicious users,
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those people can just go to fan accounts.
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And more insidiously, many parents of these child
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influencers engage with support and follow the fan accounts.
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Anyways. Before I get further into this
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episode, I want to address the common criticism that people
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receive when they speak up about the dangers of child influencers
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and the very real possibility that content of these children
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could end up in the wrong hands. The number one criticism is that
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the content posted by the parents is innocent and it's the
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people speaking out who are sexualizing the child.
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Discussing what is happening with children online in an
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effort to protect them is not exploitation by the person who
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is speaking up. If we cannot speak up about
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Child Exploitation and abuse without being branded as a
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predator by trolls online, then no child will ever be safe.
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And there have been several cases now of online audiences
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speaking up against the parents of child influencers for posting
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really damaging content, and law enforcement has actually stepped
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in. One of the earliest examples of
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this is the Daddy O 5 YouTube channel, who ended up losing
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custody of two of five of their children when a 2017 vlog got a
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lot of attention from viewers for being abusive.
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Another more recent example is that of the 8 Passengers family
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channel Ruby Frankie. Both prior to and after Ruby's
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arrest, her daughter Sherry, who is now an adult, worked with
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viewers to collect evidence of her mother's child abuse that
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had been filmed on their YouTube channel for years.
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Sherry spoke out on podcasts and on her Instagram account asking
14:25
for viewers help. All of this contributed to Ruby
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being charged with six counts of aggravated child abuse and her
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subsequent sentencing. So these conversations work, and
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they are not about taking children away from innocent
14:39
parents. Users are not having these
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conversations to exploit Ren or other children in these
14:46
situations for clicks and views, no one wants to talk about Child
14:50
Exploitation and child abuse. There are so many other topics
14:55
users could cover to get those clicks and views.
14:58
With that in mind, the concern about what Jacqueline was
15:01
posting online escalated in June 2022 with the circulation of the
15:05
hashtag save Ren. Under this hashtag, users shared
15:09
their concern for the child and called on TikTok to shut the
15:12
account down. While it's unclear how this
15:14
movement first started, it gained significant momentum
15:18
after one creator made a video showing screenshots of comments
15:22
posted by adult men on Ren's content that seemingly
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sexualized the child. Despite garnering millions of
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views and presumably many, many account reports, TikTok did not
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remove Ren's account. A few weeks after the #began
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circulating, the comments were temporarily turned off the
15:41
account, and when Jacqueline turns them back on, they were
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limited, presumably in an attempt to weed out
15:48
inappropriate posts. TikTok creator Samantha
15:51
Kastenholtz is amongst a growing number of mothers who have
15:53
spoken out about the comments and direct messages that their
15:57
children receive online. In February of this year,
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Samantha made a video urging family vloggers to reconsider
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sharing their children on social media.
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My husband and I came to a decision today that we're no
16:07
longer going to show our daughter 7's face anymore.
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Probably wondering why, but you know, we've had a long talk
16:13
about this and I just feel like we live in a very disgusting
16:16
world. And it's so sad because I spent
16:20
five years keep trying to get pregnant and I did 2 rounds of
16:23
IVF and I had low eggs and like, the chances of me getting
16:26
pregnant were so minimal. So I was so proud to show off my
16:30
miracle baby and just, you know, show our daily lives and
16:33
everything that we're doing in such an innocent way.
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And yet there are so many gross people out there, and the saves
16:39
on my videos just keep getting higher and higher.
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And I I get messages every day about her.
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And there's people saying I am in love with your baby,
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literally sending me messages saying this.
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This is only the bare minimum. I'm not even going to go into
16:52
detail about other messages I've got or comments or just shares
16:57
and the people following me. I have an Instagram I made for
17:00
her and it's private, and I have over 600 friend requests in her
17:04
inbox from men, and she's not even one years old.
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She is a baby. It is so disgusting and I just,
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I can't take it anymore and every time I post a picture or a
17:15
video of her in the back of my head I'm thinking, what is going
17:17
to happen with this video? It seems inappropriate comments
17:20
and DMS are sadly par for the course for child influencers.
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Just last month, the New York Times published an investigation
17:27
into the accounts of young girls run by their mothers.
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The reporters analyzed 2.1 million Instagram posts
17:35
monitored. Months of online chats of
17:38
professed pedophiles and interviewed over 100 people,
17:43
including parents and children, quote thousands of accounts
17:46
examined by the Times offer disturbing insights into how
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social media is reshaping childhood, especially for girls,
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With direct parental encouragement and involvement.
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Some parents are the driving force behind the sale of photos,
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exclusive chat sessions and even the girls worn leotards and
18:05
cheer outfits to mostly unknown followers.
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The most devoted customers spend thousands of dollars nurturing
18:13
the underage relationships. The large audiences boosted by
18:16
men can benefit the families, the Times found.
18:20
The bigger followings look impressive to brands and bolster
18:23
chances of getting discounts, products and other financial
18:26
incentives. And the accounts themselves are
18:29
rewarded by Instagram's algorithm with greater
18:31
visibility on the platform, which in turn attracts more
18:34
followers. One calculation performed by an
18:37
audience demographics firm found 32,000,000 connections to male
18:42
followers among the 5000 accounts examined by the Times.
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Interacting with men opens the door to abuse some flatter,
18:50
bully and black male girls and their parents.
18:52
To get racier and racier images, the Times monitored separate
18:57
exchanges on Telegram, the messaging app where men openly
19:01
fantasize about sexually abusing the children they follow on
19:04
Instagram and extol the platform for making the images so readily
19:08
available. Some of the mothers interviewed
19:11
for the Times piece regret putting their children online,
19:14
with one saying she feels like she scarred her daughter, who is
19:17
now 17, into thinking that the only path for her future is only
19:21
fans. Quote She's written herself off
19:24
and decided that the only way she's going to have a future is
19:27
to make Mint on only fans. With the wisdom and knowledge I
19:31
have now, if I could go back, I definitely wouldn't do it.
19:35
I've been stupidly, naively feeding a pack of monsters and
19:39
the regret is huge. Another consequence of Hashtag
19:43
Save Ren was that the movement forced Jacqueline to address her
19:46
daughter's account. The past few months have been
19:48
incredibly distressing and I've learned a lot.
19:52
What started out as a hobby to make a digital scrapbook for my
19:54
daughter Ren, grew into an interesting role for me as a
19:58
single stay at home mom. Ren is my #1 priority, and her
20:02
upbringing and safety are my top job. 24 hours a day.
20:06
This account has allowed me to provide for my daughter and to
20:09
set aside money for her future. I'm not sure how this conspiracy
20:14
theory got started and spiraled out of control.
20:16
What you need to know is that no law enforcement agencies I
20:20
conferred with, including the FBI, have found any proof that
20:23
my daughter's likeness appears on inappropriate websites.
20:26
These rumors are 100% false. Jacqueline's response is highly
20:31
controversial and many users on Tiktok have questioned it.
20:35
I won't go into it all, but the claim that Jacqueline's daughter
20:38
isn't posted on any inappropriate websites is
20:42
missing the point. This is the defense for many
20:45
parents of child influencers, but the problem here is that the
20:49
FBI or whoever Jacqueline is working with doesn't need to
20:53
look on the dark web for photos or videos of these kids.
20:57
The content that these parents are posting for free on social
21:01
media is enough. Though Hashtag Save Ren never
21:05
stopped, the discussion around posting children online returned
21:09
to the forefront of viral culture at the beginning of 2024
21:13
following the arrest of YouTube mommy vlogger Ruby Frankie, who
21:17
I previously mentioned. On August 30th, Ruby was
21:20
arrested alongside her business partner Jodie Hildebrandt on 6
21:23
counts of aggravated child abuse.
21:26
According to longtime viewers of The Family Channel, this arrest
21:29
was unsurprising and a long time coming given what the parents
21:33
had posted online. Over the years.
21:35
Ruby's arrest reignited the discussion around family
21:38
vloggers and the ethics of posting children on the
21:40
Internet, especially when those children become the breadwinner
21:44
for the family. The difference here, though, is
21:47
that Ren's TikTok is not a family account.
21:50
With family vloggers and family accounts, the parents want to be
21:53
famous themselves, which is usually why they start these
21:56
channels in the 1st place. The parents typically featured
22:00
just as frequently as the children and the content centers
22:03
around family life and family dynamics.
22:06
Jacqueline however, keeps much of her personal life private.
22:10
The account is of and about her daughter.
22:14
This is different from family channels, where both the
22:16
children and the parents usually perform for the camera and
22:20
exploit intimate details of their personal life for the
22:24
success of the channel. Now, I don't want to minimize
22:27
the experience of children who are involved in family channels.
22:30
As mentioned at the top of this episode, we have covered the
22:33
issues with family channels at length on this podcast.
22:36
Family channels are absolutely exploitative and unethical and
22:41
the children cannot consent to being part of these channels.
22:45
Ren's experience, however, is more similar to that of a child
22:49
actor. But unlike child actors, there
22:52
are almost no laws in place to protect children like Ren.
22:56
The American entertainment industry upholds the California
22:59
Coogan law, which requires that 15% of a child's earnings go
23:04
into a blocked trust account. However, for child influencers,
23:08
there are currently few laws and regulations that protect them
23:11
from working on social media, which means most parents are not
23:14
legally required to compensate their children for their work,
23:18
nor are they required to stick to any guidelines around working
23:22
hours on the Internet. For those unfamiliar, the Coogan
23:25
Law was named after Jackie Coogan, who was a Hollywood
23:28
silent actor discovered by Charlie Chaplin.
23:30
Coogan had earned an estimated 3 to $4 million as a child actor,
23:35
which is equivalent to around $50 million today.
23:38
His father was in control of his money, and his earnings were
23:41
thought to be intact for him to receive them on his 21st
23:43
birthday. However, his father died in a
23:45
car accident five months before his birthday, and he discovered
23:50
that nearly all of his fortune had been squandered by his
23:53
mother and stepfather within those months.
23:57
So Coogan sued them, and this attention brought about the 1939
24:01
Coogan Act. When it comes to social media,
24:03
however, there are many loopholes in the very few
24:07
existing protective mandates. I will look at both the US and
24:11
Australia. In researching this episode, I
24:13
found that 12 U.S. states enacted bills or adopted
24:16
resolutions in 2023 pertaining to children and Online
24:20
Protection. The issue, however, is that the
24:23
majority of the bills put forth for consideration in 2023 were
24:27
about children's usage of social media and the content that they
24:31
are exposed to, Not necessarily about the repercussions of
24:35
children's likeness being used online.
24:39
Last year, there was a landmark law passed in Illinois that
24:42
requires parents to compensate child influencers.
24:44
Starting July 1st, 2024, parents in Illinois will be required to
24:49
put aside 50% of earnings for a piece of content into a blocked
24:52
trust fund for the child based on the percentage of time
24:56
they're featured in a video. For example, if a child is in
25:00
50% of a video, they should receive 25% of the funds.
25:05
If they're in 100%, they are required to get 50% of the
25:08
earnings. However, this only applies to
25:11
scenarios during which the child appears on screen for more than
25:15
30% of vlogs in a 12 month period.
25:18
So while this is a wonderful start and definitely shows that
25:23
from a cultural and a legal perspective, we are starting to
25:26
take things seriously. The Illinois law helps protect
25:30
the money made by child influencers, but doesn't address
25:33
the issue of children being online to begin with.
25:38
Now it's not all hopeless. In addition to Illinois, three
25:42
more states, New York, Washington State, and New
25:46
Jersey, have proposed bills to protect child influencers.
25:50
Maryland, Georgia, Ohio, Missouri, California, Arizona,
25:53
and Minnesota have introduced similar legislation, and some of
25:57
these bills are going one step further to protect the privacy
26:00
of children in online content. In some states, proposed
26:04
legislation would include a clause that would allow someone
26:07
who is featured in content when they were a minor to request
26:11
platforms permanently delete those posts.
26:14
None of the current legislation introduced, however, would
26:17
outright ban featuring minors in monetized content in Australia.
26:22
To put it bluntly, there are basically no laws.
26:26
We have strong online harassment and cyberbullying laws.
26:29
But here influencer marketing operates under a voluntary code
26:33
of best practice overseen by the Australian Influencer Marketing
26:36
Council. So when a child works in
26:38
entertainment, for example, they are protected by child
26:41
employment laws specific to each state or territory.
26:45
But this protection does not extend to when children are
26:47
working with or for their parents on social media, media
26:51
arts lawyer Stephanie Scott told LSJ Online quote What if mom has
26:55
been hired by Betty Crocker to do an ad campaign and the brief
26:58
is to take videos and photographs of baking a cake in
27:01
your home kitchen with your daughter?
27:03
So the daughter is not being engaged as the talent of the
27:05
campaign. But if Mom is filming and
27:08
directing all of the content herself and has provided a
27:10
release form to Betty Crocker for her child to feature in the
27:13
campaign, then it's murky as to whether the child is employed or
27:17
whether they're baking a cake in their own home, and Mom just
27:20
happens to be taking a video of it.
27:22
At present, Australian children who are not engaged directly
27:25
with a brand or agency are not viewed as employees of their
27:28
parents, even if the content they create for their parents is
27:32
monetized. As a result, they are not
27:34
protected even when the child is engaged directly by a brand or
27:39
agency. Australian child influencers are
27:42
not guaranteed financial compensation when they are
27:45
considered minors. The issue with children who have
27:47
followings online, whether in the US, Australia or otherwise,
27:51
are complex and far reaching. Beyond the lack of compensation,
27:55
they include privacy rights, psychological issues, consent,
28:00
or lack thereof when filming often begins from such a young
28:03
age, and the dangers of being a public figure when you're a
28:07
minor. In a new expose for
28:09
Cosmopolitan, journalist for Tessa Latifi spoke with the
28:13
children of family creators who told her that the pressure of
28:16
their family's income being on their shoulders as a child took
28:20
a massive emotional toll. Quote There was this idea that
28:23
you have to look perfect and pretty and like nothing is wrong
28:26
all of the time in front of the camera, the now 20 year old
28:29
daughter of a 2010's family vlogger told Latifi.
28:33
And if it seems like I wasn't trying hard enough to maintain
28:35
that image, like my smile wasn't as bright as it should be or I
28:39
didn't say a line with enough enthusiasm that would usually
28:42
devolve into accusing me of not caring about our family, I was
28:47
told by my mom Quote do you want us to starve?
28:51
Do you want us to not be able to make our payment next month on
28:53
the mortgage? Children should not be asked or
28:56
expected to play out their milestones, their breakdowns,
29:00
their trauma responses, and their moments of happiness and
29:04
success in front of a camera. For millions of strange adults
29:09
to consume, children cannot provide informed consent.
29:14
Even if a parent asks their permission to film, children are
29:17
unlikely to grasp that these videos will be publicly
29:20
available for anyone in the world to watch.
29:24
Children do not understand that once a video has been published
29:28
online, it can never truly be removed.
29:31
When it comes to the very few laws in place to protect
29:35
children in this space, there is just too much plausible
29:39
deniability. It's too easy for any parent who
29:42
posts their children online to say things like it's just a
29:46
video of my kid eating a banana. I didn't know that these men
29:49
commenting on my posts were predators.
29:51
So in addition to more legislation needed to protect
29:54
children online, there needs to be some onus on the platforms
29:58
and also on the brands who sponsor family channels and
30:02
child influencers. In the Cosmo investigation,
30:05
Latifi spoke with Grant, the patriarch of Tik Tok's popular
30:09
Hay Eliam family. In 2023, Grant and his wife made
30:14
the decision to stop being a family channel and remove their
30:17
children from all posts and content.
30:20
This decision took away almost all of their accounts
30:23
profitability quote When we were showing our kids brands were
30:27
rolling in left and right. Clothing companies, apps, paper
30:30
towel companies, food brands, they all wanted us to work with
30:34
them. Once we stopped, we reached out
30:37
to the brands we had lined up and 99% of them dropped out
30:40
because they wanted kids to showcase their products.
30:44
And I fought back like you guys are a paper towel company, why
30:47
do you need a kid selling your stuff?
30:49
This is very much in line with other reports over the years
30:53
that brands will pay family vloggers more on a brand deal
30:56
based on how much their children feature in that content.
31:00
So if children are in 100% of a sponsored video, brands will pay
31:04
the parents a higher rate than if they only feature in 50% of
31:08
the video, for example. Obviously, in a perfect world,
31:11
money would never come before the safety of a child, but for
31:16
people who are already monetizing their children's
31:19
likeness, that is often not the case.
31:22
So that brings us back to the top of the episode where TikTok
31:26
users created the Save Run movement to put pressure on the
31:29
platform to remove the account. This didn't work because, again,
31:34
there is just too much plausible deniability for the platforms.
31:38
These parents are not technically creating explicit
31:41
content of their children, so these accounts do not
31:44
technically go against the terms of service.
31:48
And when it comes to age, gating Tik Tok's Terms of Service
31:51
clearly state quote the services are only for people thirteen
31:56
years old and over. By using the Services, you
31:59
confirm that you were over the relevant age specified herein.
32:03
If we learn that someone under the relevant age specified above
32:06
is using the Services, we will terminate that user's account.
32:10
However, as mentioned before, the loophole here is that it's
32:15
technically the parents who are over the age of 13 running these
32:20
accounts, and as a result the children technically have
32:25
parental consent to be showing up on social media.
32:29
They are getting away with all of this based off of
32:33
technicalities. Right now, children being posted
32:36
on social media is a Gray area. Profitability has come before
32:40
their safety in almost every single element of this episode
32:44
that we have explored. So that leaves us with some
32:46
unanswered questions. In an environment where parents,
32:51
platforms and governments refuse to take responsibility for what
32:56
is posted and monetized on social media, who will protect
33:00
the children and how many more kids need to be exploited before
33:05
we finally put children's safety online above viral fame.
33:10
Infinite Scroll is a podcast written, produced, edited and
33:14
presented by me, Lauren Meisner for Centennial World.
33:18
Additional research and reporting is by Annabelle.
33:20
Ben, David, thank you so much for listening.
33:23
I love you guys so much, and I will talk to you next week.
33:27
Bye.