The New Age Of Child Labor: Family Influencing And Child Exploitation

by Devin Scarborough, Associate Member, University of Cincinnati Law Review Vol. 94

I. Introduction

The rapid expansion of social media platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok has facilitated the rise of a distinct subset of content creators known as “family influencers”—parents who garner significant popularity by curating content focused on their children.¹ What were once intimate family moments have now been publicly disseminated for their monetizing potential.² Influencing offers lucrative income potential, with many parents transitioning to full-time influencers as their primary source of income.³ For example, popular family influencers generate over forty thousand dollars in revenue from a single sponsored Instagram post.⁴ At first glance, family and child influencing presents a fun and unique way to memorialize family milestones, while also generating income. However, the niche content creates a host of harms to children being used in the videos and images.⁵ Children face financial exploitation and a myriad of privacy intrusions that impact their reputation and safety on the Internet.⁶ Existing federal and state laws have failed to keep up with the evolution of social media in providing adequate legal protection to children of family influencers.⁷ Recently, a small percentage of states have passed laws that provide specific protections to child influencers, although the protections are extremely limited.⁸

This article examines the harms that family influencing imposes on children in the public eye and contends that existing legislation is insufficient to prevent their exploitation. Part II explores the rise of family influencers and identifies the principal risks children experience when their likeness and labor are monetized online. Part III critiques the inadequacies of existing child labor laws and internet privacy legislation aimed at addressing the exploitation of child influencers, while also acknowledging the limited advances made through recent state enactments. Finally, Part IV concludes by highlighting the urgent need for comprehensive legislation to ensure meaningful safeguards for children in the influencer industry.

II. Background

Family influencers and vloggers constitute a niche group of social media personalities, typically parents, who have amassed millions of followers by centering their online presence around their children.⁹ Where parents once recorded cute videos of their children to share with family and friends, family influencers now publicly disseminate these videos in hopes of becoming a viral sensation on social media platforms.¹⁰ Despite the appeal of instant notoriety and viral success, the underlying incentive is financial gain.¹¹ Top family vloggers are able to make millions through marketing agreements, partnerships, and brand deals with businesses to promote products or services through their children.¹² Yet, this rapidly expanding industry raises serious concerns. Children that are thrust into the spotlight become vulnerable to financial exploitation by their parents, experience an invasion of privacy that may result in lasting reputational and psychological harm, along with a heightened risk of exposure to predatory individuals and behavior.

A. Financial Exploitation

The central question is whether child influencing constitutes work or play time when it pays the bills. Decisions regarding the labor and earnings of child influencers rest almost entirely within the discretion of parents who earn money by posting their children on social media.¹³

United States legislation protecting child influencers from financial exploitation has been slow to develop and has not historically been incorporated into either federal or state labor protections.¹⁴ In 1938, the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA” or the “Act”) established a variety of labor protections, including minimum wage, maximum hours, tip regulations, hours worked, and child labor provisions.¹⁵ The Act, however, expressly exempted child actors and performers from the protections afforded by §212, the Child Labor Provisions.¹⁶ With the enactment of FLSA, Congress intended to shield children from oppressive and hazardous occupations, yet it declined to classify child actors as falling within that category.¹⁷

In the 1920s, child actor Jackie Coogan rose to fame after being discovered by Charlie Chaplin and starring in the famous film, The Kid.¹⁸ When Coogan reached adulthood, he learned that his parents had spent nearly all of his childhood earnings.¹⁹ Unprotected from federal law due to FLSA exemptions, Coogan brought suit against his parents for his lost earnings.²⁰ Coogan prevailed in his lawsuit, but expensive legal fees left him with only a small portion of his childhood earnings.²¹

The outcome of the Coogan case gave rise to “Coogan Laws,” which require parents to deposit a percentage of child performers’ earnings into a trust account.²² For example, as of 2000, California parents are mandated to deposit fifteen percent of child actor earnings into a “Coogan Trust Account.”²³ Over half of the fifty states have enacted similar legislation to protect child actors.²⁴ Coogan Laws, however, were drafted before reality television and social media, and thus did not extend to children featured in family vlogs or other influencer content.²⁵ As a result, children whose images and labor fuel the influencer economy remain unprotected under outdated legal frameworks.

To date, only four states have enacted additional legislation to expand similar protections to children featured in online content, leaving the vast majority of children in the United States vulnerable to complete financial exploitation.²⁶ In the absence of uniform statutory protections, parents may legally retain all revenues generated by their child’s labor, regardless of the time and effort associated with that work.²⁷

While many parents may act with the best interests of their child in mind, sadly, this is not always the case.²⁸ The case of the “8 Passengers” YouTube channel illustrates the potential for abuse: launched in 2015 by Utah-native Ruby Franke, a mother of six, the channel grew rapidly in popularity as she shared her family life and parenting tactics.²⁹ Over time, however, many viewers became increasingly concerned at Ruby’s harsh disciplinary methods, such as banning her son from sleeping in his bedroom for seven months as punishment for playing harmless pranks on his sibling.³⁰ Ruby Franke was later arrested and convicted for child abuse after her malnourished and severely injured son escaped and fled to a neighboring home.³¹ This high-profile case addresses a broader and sobering reality—parental intentions are not always pure, and unfettered parental control over revenue generated by child influencers leaves children susceptible to financial exploitation by their own parents.³²

B. Privacy Invasions – Digital Footprint and Internet Predators

Equally significant is the question of whether children have any voice in how their likeness and image are publicly shared by their parents.³³ Many children involved in the life of family influencing are young when the vlogging begins, long before they can understand the long-term implications of such exposure.³⁴ Even older children, though more aware, often lack the ability to resist parental pressure or overcome the inherent power imbalance in the parent-child relationship.³⁵ In addition to posting their children’s routine activities, family influencers sometimes push the boundaries of inappropriate privacy invasions.³⁶ These invasions have been well-documented. For example, the Ace family filmed their daughter crying and partially undressed during a doctor’s appointment; Yawi Vlogs recorded their daughter learning to shave; and the Shaytards father taped his daughter talking about a crush, even after she asked him to “cut that part out.”³⁷

The posting of videos and images on social media inevitably shapes a child’s digital footprint—the semi-permanent trail of information created through online activity.³⁸ Family influencer parents begin shaping their children’s digital footprints at an early age, which can have lasting implications on their reputation long after they reach adulthood.³⁹ With an increasing number of colleges and employers reviewing candidates’ online presence, child influencers may encounter obstacles in obtaining university admissions or employment opportunities.⁴⁰

In addition, the psychological toll of growing up in the spotlight can be deeply damaging for child influencers.⁴¹ Young influencers struggle with high levels of anxiety, depression, and substance abuse, which is exacerbated by the publicity of influencing.⁴² Children are left vulnerable to criticism, online bullying or hate, and harassment from strangers which consequently affects their self-esteem and perceived self-worth.⁴³ Beyond exposure to online hate, young influencers confront the more alarming threat of predatory access by strangers, specifically pedophiles, who exploit social media platforms to target children.⁴⁴ A New York Times investigation revealed more than thirty-two million connections between male followers and five thousand “mom-run” influencer accounts.⁴⁵ Many of these men utilize an app called Telegram to fantasize about sexually abusing the child influencers they follow.⁴⁶ One Telegram user wrote: “It’s like a candy store,” while another wrote “God bless instamoms[.]”⁴⁷ With easy access to child content, this material can easily be manipulated in what has been termed “digital kidnapping”—the unauthorized appropriation of a child’s image for use in child pornography or sexual exploitation.⁴⁸ Despite the severe harms associated with online exposure to pedophiles, family influencer parents remain incentivized by increased social media engagement generated by male interactions with content featuring their children.⁴⁹ Brand partnerships are driven by follower counts and engagement metrics, providing a strong incentive for family influencer parents to encourage high-volume interaction, even if inappropriate or predatory audiences are the dominate sources that generate that interaction and engagement.⁵⁰

III. Discussion

The United States has failed to match the progress of other nations in adopting comprehensive laws designed to protect child influencers.⁵¹ France, for example, enacted sweeping legislation in 2020 that expressly classifies child influencing as a form of child labor and prescribes specific working condition standards for children featured on social media.⁵² The United States should utilize the all-encompassing French legislation to structure comprehensive laws applicable in every state. The amended French labor code provides a workable framework for addressing child influencer exploitation.⁵³ The law (1) regulates “the dissemination of the image of a child under the age of sixteen on a video sharing platform service, when the child is the main subject” and takes into consideration the duration and amount of the content, (2) addresses “recommendations to the legal representatives of the child” including “times, duration, hygiene, and safety conditions” of filming, (3) outlines the psychological risks associated with child influencing, (4) mandates school attendance, (5) implements a trust for the earnings that the child can access once they reach the age of majority, or are emancipated, (6) notifies video sharing platforms of their responsibility to provide information on the regulations related to minors and the risks associated with posting child images.⁵⁴ France successfully implemented a multi-faceted solution to address a multi-faceted problem. The United States should emulate its model to better safeguard children in the local influencer community.

The law must rapidly evolve to address these persistent exploitation concerns. By allowing outdated legislation to remain the standard, the United States continues to permit the exploitation of children. Since existing laws, such as the FLSA and state-level “Coogan Laws,” do not account for the unique circumstances surrounding child influencers, children continue to suffer from rampant exploitation in multiple ways. First, they suffer from financial exploitation at the hands of their own parents. Second, their privacy is often violated throughout childhood, leading to extensive digital footprints from a young age that may impact them as they transition to adulthood. In addition, child influencers face heightened risks of psychological harm and of being targeted by predatory behavior in digital spaces. The time is now to address the safety and security of these children throughout the United States.

Only recently have a handful of states begun to extend Coogan-like protections specifically to child influencers.⁵⁵ However, these measures fall short in properly addressing the complex exploitation experienced by child influencers throughout the United States. In 2024, Illinois became the first state to enact minimal protections, with California, Utah, and Minnesota following closely behind.⁵⁶ There remains a long road ahead, as forty-six states have yet to pass any protections whatsoever for child influencers.⁵⁷ Additionally, the current Coogan-based regulations in the four states do not adequately ensure that child influencers will be fairly and appropriately compensated for their work due to obvious loopholes in the law.⁵⁸ The Illinois law, for example, is limited to compensating children for content “using the child’s likeness, featuring the child directly in the vlog, or making the child the focal point of the vlog.”⁵⁹ Children may spend hours behind the scenes filming and re-filming content that is never published online, and under this law, they will remain uncompensated for their work.⁶⁰ Thus, financial exploitation remains a pressing concern in every state despite new and extremely limited legislation targeted at protecting child influencer’s income.

Such weak protections cannot be the end of child influencer exploitation reform. No number of follows, brand deals, or likes is worth the exploitation of any child. Legislation must close the loopholes in existing laws and establish safeguards for child influencers. Strong, clear laws are needed nationwide. The United States should consider adopting laws regarding child influencing from other countries, such as France, to better protect the financial, privacy, and psychological risks of child influencing. It is time to enact legislation to preserve the sanctity and safety of childhood by ensuring that children are not treated as cash-cows, their labor is not exploited under the pretext of entertainment, and their online safety and psychological well-being is protected.

IV. Conclusion

The rise of family influencing has generated a contemporary form of child labor that remains largely unregulated in the United States. Without adequate legal protections, children are left vulnerable to a wide range of serious risks. As digital content creation becomes a permanent feature of family life, it is imperative that the United States reform its laws to confront the exploitative realities of this new era of child labor.

Cover Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash

Devin Scarborough

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