Locked in her home during a pandemic lockdown three years ago, 13-year-old Shreya Nallamothu was surfing social media when she noticed a pattern: Kids even younger than her were porn stars. dancing, cracking a class and generally lovable.
“At first, it seemed harmless to me,” says Nallamothu.
But as she watched more and more posts about kids pushing their products or unfortunate incidents go viral, she began to wonder: Who’s looking for them?
“I realized that there is a lot of exploitation that can happen in the ‘kids’ world,” says Nallamothu, referring to monetizing social media content with children. realize that there are absolutely no laws protecting them.”
Illinois lawmakers aim to change that by making their state what they say will be the first in the nation to create protections for social media influencers. Society is children. Nallamothu, now 15, raised her concerns with Illinois Senator David Koehler of Peoria, who later introduced the legislation.
Illinois’ bill would allow child influencers under 16 to get a percentage of earnings based on how often they appear on video blogs or online content that generates at least 10 cents per view. To be eligible, content must be created in Illinois, and children must appear in at least 30% of the content within a 30-day period.
The video blogger — or vlogger — will be responsible for maintaining a record of the children’s occurrences and must set aside the children’s total earnings in a trust account when they turn 18, or the child may be sued. .
The bill was passed unanimously by the state Senate in March and is expected to be considered by the House of Representatives this week. If passed, the bill would return to the Senate for a final vote before reaching Governor JB Pritzker, who said he plans to sign it into law in the coming months.
Family-style vlogs can introduce children from birth and recount family milestones and events — helpful clips that Nallamothu initially came across.
But experts say that commercialization” share “The industry, which can earn content creators tens of thousands of dollars per brand, is over-regulated and can even be harmful.
“As we see influencers and content creators increasingly becoming a viable career path for young people, we must remember that this is here,” said University of Alabama professor Jessica Maddox. where the law has not caught up with practice. people who study social media platforms.
She added that child influencers “are in dire need of the same protections as other child workers and entertainers.”
The Illinois bill was largely modeled on California’s 1939 Jackie Coogan law, named after a silent film-era child actor who sued his parents for squandering hard-earned money. Coogan laws now exist in some states and require parents to set aside a portion of child artists’ earnings when they reach adulthood.
Other states have tried to pass legislation to regulate combating the possibility of child exploitation on social media, but without success. California 2018 child labor bill includes a social media advertising provision that was removed at the time it was adopted and Washington’s 2023 Bill stalled in the committee.
Crossing the Atlantic Ocean, France passed legislation in 2020 giving influencers who are children under the age of 16 a share of their revenue, as well as a “right to be forgotten,” meaning video platforms must pull images of children. at the request of minors. Parental consent is not required.
Illinois’ own bill has undergone several changes in the legislative session that have reduced its reach, including stripping away a provision that would allow child influencers to request content removal when they turn 18. and ask family vloggers to subscribe to their channel.
However, Chicago-based Tyler Diers, executive director of the Midwest tech trade association Technet, who opposed the bill before the changes but is now neutral, said that as a base The state legislature raised a problem, others tended to follow, “and sometimes perfectly what the first state did.”
Nallamothu emphasized that the Illinois bill is not aimed at “parents who post their children on Facebook to their family and close friends,” or even a humorous clip that goes viral.
“This is for families who earn income from kids vlogs and family vlogs,” she said.
Multiple social media platforms — including Facebook, Instagram and TikTok — do not allow children to have an account until they are at least 13 years old. But that hasn’t stopped them from popping up on social media. And the internet is littered with examples of children being exhibited for financial gain – and it has caused harm as a result.
In 2019, an Arizona mother was accused of torture 7 adopted children for side performances in their popular YouTube series, Great Adventures; a Maryland couple Who post “prank” videos of themselves screaming at their children and broke their toys lost custody and was sentenced to 5 years probation for child neglect.
Another couple on YouTube filmed their family’s birth every step of the way. Adopting autistic children from China. only to finally put him in a new home.
Chris McCarty, an 18-year-old college student who founded Quit Clicking Kids, an advocacy organization focused on protecting minors from being monetized online and the man behind the bill in Washington. Note that “this problem will not go away.”
“Once these kids start to grow up, the true extent of the damage caused by family channels for money will be realized,” McCarty said. said at a hearing for the Washington bill in February.
TikToker Bobbi Althoff is the mother of two young daughters she affectionately calls “Richard” and “Concrete” with her 3.7 million followers. Althoff once shared his eldest daughter’s face and real name online, but stopped after people made rude comments about her.
“I keep thinking about my daughter growing up reading these things, and it really annoys me because I hate reading things like that about myself,” she said.
When she shared her decision about Instagramshe lost thousands of followers and received backlash.
“A lot of people were supportive, but certainly a lot of people were very strange about it,” said Althoff, describing how some viewers seemed to feel “they were having a relationship with my daughter… and wanted to keep watching her grow.”
While the kids popular on TikTok aren’t old enough yet to reflect on their experiences, the child reality TV stars of the past decade can offer comparable insight into what it’s like to be on the side. the other side of the camera.
Ohio-based Jason Welage enjoyed his time as a teenager on TruTV’s 2015 reality show Kart Life, which follows families in the world of go-kart racing. Now 20 years old, Welage says some unpleasant aspects have followed him into adulthood.
“When you Google the show, the first clip that pops up on YouTube is of me leaving the track and crying,” he said. “I still hear about it to this day.”
His parents transferred the $10,000 he earned on the program back to his race, which could cost families up to $150,000 a year, according to his mother, Meghan, who, like her son, supports child influencer legislation in Illinois and hopes similar legislation will be implemented in other states or even the federal government.
For children appearing on social media or TV, “it definitely suits them,” she says. Her son “wants to hang out, but instead he has to sit on a stool in our mobile home and do interviews.”
“There needs to be something to compensate the child for what they are going through or what they have to do,” she said.
