On Sunday evening I saw a TikTok that made me so angry I had to set down my phone and take a deep breath. It was a mother detailing her morning routine and driving her children to school. She was bothering her son — poking him, hitting him, singing in his face — while he pushed her away and made it clear he did not want to be touched. Yet she continued. A mother, for the sake of social media attention, purposely violated her son’s boundaries and humiliated him in front of millions.
This is just one example of the social media plague known as family influencers. These people, usually mothers, exploit their children for social media content, usually in the form of “cute” videos or “realistic” vlogs where they detail their daily lives for the internet to see. Family influencers are personifications of everything wrong with social media today. They exploit their children that they are meant to raise and care for, commodifying familial love for likes and comments.
One of the most severe examples of abuse and exploitation online is also one that you’ve probably heard of — the Franke family, who ran the now-abandoned YouTube channel “8 Passengers.” Ruby Franke, the matriarch, was arrested in 2023 and pled guilty for four counts of aggravated child abuse. This came after her 12-year-old son escaped Jodi Hildenbrant’s (Franke’s life coach) Utah home emaciated, with duct tape around his ankles. Prosecutors looked at Franke’s past videos featuring her laughing about her punitive measures that included withholding meals, removing doors and isolation. Her adult children, Shari and Chad, have spoken out about the horrific abuse they experienced at the hands of Franke and the dangers of unchecked “mommy vlogging” and family influencer content. Shari even declared, in front of the Utah legislature, that there is “no ethical or moral family vlogger”.
As a result of the Franke case, more states are beginning to pass laws designed to protect the financial rights of children in family influencer channels. Illinois passed its “Child Labor Law of 2024,” including language that addresses online personas and family vlogging. California and the Frankes’ home state of Utah have also passed laws intended to protect the financials of these child stars, addressing trust accounts and financial transparency.
However, these laws only address the financial rights of the child; the children’s rights to privacy and control over the content is often addressed inadequately or not addressed at all. In Utah and Minnesota, once the child is 18, they can take steps to delete content they are uncomfortable with. But this only takes effect when they turn 18. Children of family influencers in these states must still live with embarrassing or uncomfortable content until they turn 18. Other states do not even address the non-financial harm that comes with family influencing.
Family influencers expose their children to the evils of the world, sharing intimate details of their lives without their consent for more clicks. For young girls, this is even more dangerous. An investigation by the New York Times found that many parent-managed Instagram accounts of young girls (aspiring models, gymnasts, etc.) were primarily followed by men. Men will constantly sexually harass these girls in their comment sections; parent managers of these accounts are quoted saying that “the first thing they did when they woke up in the morning was block followers and the last thing they did before they went to bed was block followers.” There is no safe way to post young girls publicly on the internet — yet these parents post their children anyway, knowing that there are pedophiles actively seeking out their innocuous content for sexual purposes.
Whether a parent is sharing a supposedly cute moment, poking their child’s face in the car or uploading a vlog about their day-to-day life, that child’s life will be changed forever. They are exposed to the full force of the internet, both good and bad — and the parents will profit, “creating an environment where informed consent is nearly impossible,” according to the Chicago Journal of International Law.
While it is my opinion that family content should not exist, restricting family influencers would be impossible under free-speech laws. Considering the financial exploitation of children in family content, children’s lack of control over how they are presented on the internet and privacy issues related to information and picture sharing, state legislators should do more to protect the emotional wellbeing of children in family content to make it safer for everyone involved.