When social media sites like Instagram and Facebook initially launched, they intended to help us remain connected with our loved ones. As the platforms grew and increased their user bases, companies found a ready and willing market to directly advertise their products. This fundamentally changed how the platforms worked and promoted content. It was no longer about what your cousin had for lunch. It is now about products, routines, and curated lifestyles. Social media now prioritizes children, influencers, families, and celebrities.
Social media has stopped being social and become a digestible shortened form of network television. The algorithm on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook are now about keeping your attention. This can be done through clout chasing or rage bait. When an account goes viral, they try to ride the wave as long as possible. The more viewers you have the more revenue you get. When a family turns their daily life into a reality show, there grows a reason for concern.
The rise of kidfluencers
Kidfluencers or child influencers are children who review products meant for children. They also advertise items meant for children like toys, clothes, diapers, wipes, or food items. One of the earliest child influencers is Ryan Kaji or Ryan’s World. He became famous with his original channel, Ryan ToysReview, where he reviewed children’s toys on YouTube. He started making videos in 2015 at the age of four. His channel has over 38 million subscribers and features him and his family unboxing children’s toys and gadgets. In Ryan’s case, he was reviewing devices meant for children. But later instances of kidfluencers haven’t been the same.
Most recently, there’s been a wave of tween girls doing makeup and skincare routines as the algorithm has changed to proliferate anti-aging content. This has influenced young girls aged 13 to start skincare routines to reduce wrinkles or laugh lines. This creates unrealistic beauty standards and leads to 20-year-olds getting procedures like lip fillers which they don’t need when they’re so young.
As children become more computer literate, social media platforms promote content to them more frequently. Children-focused accounts tend to have higher view counts and engagement. This helps family channels gain a lot of viewership because they have broad appeal from children to adults. Family channels with younger children tend to have the highest engagement because newer parents seek community while opponents constantly comment on their outrage. However, some families have found a more insidious way to take advantage of their children.
The danger of posting children online
A 2024 investigation by the New York Times found that most family channels with young children have a large adult male following. Men are following these kidfluencers to groom these children or get child sex abuse material. Photographers and parents conspired to sell provocative photographs of minors and clothes, such as worn underwear. Parents were coaching their 12 to 13-year-old girls to wear bikinis or pose in sexual positions for these men’s consumption. Other parents make their children perform suggestive acts like eating phallic-shaped food items like giant pickles or cucumbers on camera. Others charged men to get access to chats or live streams with their children. PBS also found that the larger the accounts, the larger the number of adult male followers.
Exposing children to these risks can result in great harm like sexual assault, harassment, and poor mental health. These parents refuse to take down the accounts because the social media platforms incentivize this content—from rage baiting, profiting from affiliate links, or paedophiles paying to have direct online access to their children.
Videos that involve bath times, potty training, or playing in a bed tend to get higher engagement. These actions also have the potential for posting the largest number of products, such as bath bombs, shampoos, lotions, conditioners, bathrobes, slippers, food items, food-carrying accessories, or branded clothes. The more the products, the higher the number of buyers. But there’s another undercurrent of catering content to adults seeking child sexual abuse material.
Children who are part of family influencer channels are also at risk of over-exertion. Shari Franke, daughter of Ruby Franke who ran the 8 Passengers channel, recently released a memoir. In it, she documents the abuse she faced at the hands of her now-imprisoned mother. The 8 Passengers channel documented nearly every day of their lives leaving the children exhausted. They had to redo scenes and act out how their mother wanted them. If they didn’t, they risked being struck by their mother.
Kidfluencers are also at risk from their parents who are managing and directing the content. The 8 Passengers started in 2015 to document the life of a stay-at-home mother. In August 2023, the channel died after one of the sons ran to neighbours for help looking malnourished, emaciated, and with open sores and duct tape residue on his wrists. Ruby Franke and her husband were sentenced to 30 years for child abuse.
In a report by the University of Chicago, family channels violate their children’s right to privacy by exposing private information. They also violate child labour laws because these children are working every time they’re being recorded and often don’t get compensated for their work. They often don’t have legal rights to the money they generate for their families. The channels also don’t consider safety, mental health, and physical health.
What should be done to protect children?
Social media platforms’ terms of service show they’re not liable for the harm caused to their users. They have an age limit and don’t allow people under 13 to have social media accounts. However, parents go around this by creating accounts themselves and then posting the content themselves as they prefer. While some accounts do get shut down or demonetized for visible criminal activity, many accounts still run rampant. When these parents get their accounts suspended, they also open other accounts with near-similar usernames.
What the UN says
It’s not possible to rely on platforms to create policies to protect children. There needs to be universal legislation that makes these companies comply. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child has a globally ratified agreement that outlines the rights of children regarding labour. It was created to protect the best interests of children and contains frameworks to protect children from abuse, exploitation, and trafficking, including abuse under parental care.
What countries are doing to protect children
In the US, the National Commission for the Protection of Human Rights states that any economic projects children are involved in should not affect the growth, development, and education of the child. Illinois also introduced a law stating that children must have access to a percentage of their earnings. India also has a law allowing people under 18 to create social media content as long as it doesn’t affect their ability to get a school education. France also passed a law where parents need government permission before allowing their kids to be involved in online influencing and other jobs like modelling. Children also have the right to be forgotten by asking the social media platform to remove any content featuring them without the parents’ consent. Australia wants to introduce legislation banning all children under 16 from having any social media presence with no exemptions.
Ultimately, the onus is on everyone to ensure children’s online safety. Parents can blur the faces of any young children in frame. They can also not post any children under 13 until they can learn consent. There should be stricter legislation forcing platforms to enforce child safety and reducing the incentivization of clout-chasing children’s content. Investing in well-paid and properly trained moderators can also help regulate content. Finally, everyone can stop engaging with blatantly exploitative children’s content.
Check out
Grooming: What Parents And Guardians Should Know And What Should Be Done To Protect Children
Sextortion: Why Parents Need To Talk To Teens About This Online Danger
Digital Safety: What To Do If You Think Your Child Is Being Radicalised Online
Relationships: Conversations Every Parent Should Have With Their Children
How To Protect Your Children Online
Children And Trauma: How To Help
How To Protect Your Children From Traumatic News And Content