Ethics of Children in Youtube videos / Instagram
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Anonymous
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I know for child actors, there are regulations and laws in an effort to protect them. Is there any protection for children who are featured in family channels on youtube or social media?
What made me think of this is I was watching those short videos on youtube and there was one of a woman with 3-4 kids that caught my eye. It didn't look like she came from money but her youtube channel had 300K subscribers and when I looked into it more, she also has a successful instagram following. What concerned me was the main feature of her content is her young child who has autism and who according to her at age 4 determined they were non binary and now at 6 determined they were transgendered. All her content revolves around these two topics and this young child and given both topics (autism and non-binary trans) attract decent niche audiences she seems to have a loyal following and her content gets a lot of views and comments. I am sure she is bringing in pretty good money now between youtube and instagram and it would likely be hard to find a way to replace that kind of cash and the lifestyle it offers. Which means this child and his autism / gender expression content has to keep being churned out in order to support the family. It creates a situation where there needs to keep being something new and interesting about the child in order to keep people watching. It kind of made me sad for all of them that they are now caught up in this vortex of pushing out content that features a very young child who is having his every thought and actions being filmed and broadcast (and potentially being influenced by the need for content) I know there are a lot of channels and pages that make their living off of featuring their kids. Are there are regulations in place for situations like these? |
Anonymous
| This just occurred to you? No, there are no regulations for these kids. |
Anonymous
| Wow, that's tough. At least with a blog you can keep some things vague enough to be sort of private. I always wonder what parents think their children will think when they grow up and find their own stories online. Video is too much. |
Anonymous
I don't tend to watch any family oriented shows and ignore them when I come across them but this short clip was quirky and I was trying to figure out what was happening in it and then looked into it more. Maybe it isn't an uncommon story but this particular family seemed like life had been pretty hard and stressful and there was poverty and now due to having this child with these issues that people want to watch videos of, they are relatively rich and living a pretty awesome lifestyle. But is all at the expense of exploiting this child. However the mother probably thinks it is worth it as it gives her family a life she never had and her kids would otherwise have never had. But now she has to keep churning out content about this kid and his issues to keep the money coming in to sustain the lifestyle. I am not even sure the child is fully aware he is the always being filmed and posted. The mother also gets a lot of attention and admiration and support that is likely also not there in real life. There is nobody whose focus is the best interest of the child. |
Anonymous
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I get really squicked out by the family instagrams too. I haven't seen the one you're talking about but I am constantly recommended reels by interracial families posting about how ~*~CrAZy*~~ it is that their kids look different from them/each other and it's incredibly grating. That and white people adopting black kids and posting montages with sappy songs overlaid and extremely long captions about what heroes they are for not seeing color. GMAFB.
I guess Zuck can tell I'm in an interracial marriage but he's drawn the wrong advertising conclusions from that fact. The ones that I'm more conflicted about are where people have a medically fragile/severely disabled child. I still don't love that they create a money-making online persona out of it, but I can believe that it started as a way to connect with people in similar situations or get real support in a tough situation. So even though I don't follow any I'm less judgmental of the parents. |
Anonymous
| No protections, and a very toxic environment. I don't even understand how some of these families take the TIME to create all these choreographed reels, with coordinated outfits, signs, etc. |
Anonymous
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My kids love the ones where the kids are spoiled rotten and just act cute and excited at all the trips and things. The parents are exploiting the children.
A woman I know makes a living as an influencer with a family of many kids (adopted/foster/biological). I think she stumbled into it and the money was too good to pass up, but it makes me nervous seeing her kids so online in t-shirts noting their school name, etc. She's a good person but comes across differently online. |
Anonymous
| The money they can make is too good to pass up. A way to have a very flexible job where you can be at home with your kids and make a ton of cash just by filming them as you go about your day. |
Anonymous
This is a very credulous take. Those videos are brainstormed, drafted, choreographed, rehearsed, set designed, costumed, the works. None of it is mom pulling out her camera to catch a cute moment here and there as they go about their day. |
Anonymous
| Wonder how the Baldwinitos will feel about all the posts and pictures as adults. |
Anonymous
| You'd be horrified by what's on Tik Tok. |
Anonymous
| There are absolutely no laws or regulations for this kind of thing - many of these “influencers” are exploiting their children - sometimes their children on their social media defines their “brand” and brings in the money which incentivizes them to exploit them even further. |
Anonymous
+1. For people actually making money there are takes, retakes, tons of time spent editing images and videos. I don't have an answer, but, if the children are appearing in videos and imagery and companies are paying people for ads, product reviews, etc. children should be compensated in some way. Since social media companies can't see fit to develop policies to protect children, then the government should step in. |
Anonymous
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Just FYI it's *transgender, not transgendered.
I totally agree with you. I have always thought that families that monetize their children, particularly through YouTube (meaning video rather than writing on a blog), are doing their children harm, but the situation you're describing sounds far worse than your typical family who does that. Exploring gender identity should not be done in front of an audience! That's a particularly sensitive subject. My child is non-binary and they have total control in what I share about their identity and with whom. I just watched a TikTok video where a creator shared a letter she got from a teenager who is in one of these families. He is furious at his parents and hates his life. He hates that he has no privacy, he has to act certain ways at all time, he is his parents' employee and has been since he was born, and he sees terrible, terrible comments about himself all the time. |
Anonymous
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There's an entire industry - particularly on tiktok and youtube. And a lot of them are non-traditional families or large religious ones.
There are actually reddit forums/youtube critics that are focused on this very thing- concern about the kids being exploited. The takeaway for the long term bloggers tends to be that yes, they are exploited, but thew money is too good to pass up. And there's no one to stop it. |