Kids, social media, and the age of consent`

When an entire generation is extremely online, what happens if they change their mind?

Photo by charlesdeluvio on Unsplash

With the release of the new documentary Devil in the Family, about former family vlogger Ruby Franke, the ethics of influencing, particularly as it relates to children in the industry, is coming to the forefront. I can’t stop thinking about testimony from Shari Franke, Ruby Franke’s eldest daughter, when she spoke before Utah lawmakers:

There is never ever a good reason for posting your children online for money or fame.

No amount of money I received has made what I’ve experienced worth it.

There is no such thing as a moral or ethical family vlogger.

A little over a year ago, I touched on this issue (the contents of which you can read below). I decided to re-share it now, because I hope my personal experience can shed some additional light on this topic, which to me, feels more important than ever.

Several states have enacted legislation aimed at requiring parents to save earnings for their children if they are featured in monetized content. In Illinois, the law requires that children age 16 and under be compensated if, within a 30-day period, they are in at least 30% of a video or online content for which the adult, whether a parent or caregiver, is being paid. There is no enforcement by the state, so it’s up to the adult responsible for the content to set aside earnings. California and Minnesota have enacted similar legislation, which also requires content be deleted when a request is made.

Unfortunately, there are so many gaps in these “solutions” and ultimately, these laws do little to protect minors featured in online content, much of which is not monetized. Deleting something from the internet is also almost impossible, so good luck to those kids who turn 18 and decide they didn’t want their entire childhood shared online.

Where there’s an audience there’s money to be made. And when content featuring children is consumed by millions on a daily basis, there’s an entire generation growing up in a world where their existence is simply a form of entertainment, whether they like it not.

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*This newsletter was originally published in November 2023*

During our girls night last week the topic of consent came up. Growing up during the 80s and 90s, talking about consent was not a thing (at least for any of us in that room).

These days are different. Our kids are learning about consent at an early age. That’s a good thing. For young children, like my daughter, these conversations might look like talking about boundaries and making decisions about her body and personal space.

I’m rarely on Instagram anymore, but I am always a bit shocked when I open the app, to see how many children show up in my feed, photos, videos, memes, there’s lots of kids, and they’re all very young.

I don’t follow any kids on Instagram. These are children showing up on their parent’s accounts, many of whom have hundreds of thousands of followers. While the content is seemingly innocuous, it begs the question, why?

There’s a few different answers to that question.

As someone who used to post her child on Instagram, one simple explanation is validation. Isn’t that what most of us are seeking when we’re sharing on Instagram? I was a new mom (at the very beginning of a global pandemic). There’s nothing like that dopamine rush when the hearts and comments pile up on a post with your kid in it.

For influencers, sharing kids on social media is lucrative. Influencers who post their children, whether they’re central to their online business or not, can make tens of thousands of dollars in brand deals when including their offspring.

When she was a baby, I did a few sponsored posts with my daughter. A snack brand and a children’s clothing line to name a few. “These are things I’m already buying, so it’s just a natural fit.” That was my justification at the time, even though deep down I didn’t feel good about it. Of course I now feel very differently.

There’s currently no legal protections in the US for children featured in Instagram content, even when they’re being used in paid advertisements. I’ve spoken to some influencer parents who feature their kids in content but feel torn about it. “Well we’re saving for their college” is a common response.

I understand the appeal, but how much does college matter if your child feels they can’t trust you or that you’ve exploited them? Saving money for your child’s future sounds nice, but there’s currently no laws that require parents to do that.

If you’re wondering where I’m going with all of this, it’s about consent.

We know the importance of teaching our kids about boundaries and consent. How can a child’s digital footprint not be a part of that conversation?

By the time some kids are in their early teens, there will already be hundreds if not thousands of photos and videos of them online. A study from 2010 showed that in the US, more than 90% of 2 year olds and 80% of babies already had an online presence.

And while the content these kids are featured in may seem cute and sweet, it doesn’t address the elephant in the room, they’re too young to understand the implications of being extremely online.

When a child’s online identity is publicly shaped for them from the time they’re an infant (or even before via gender reveals), they have little options to do anything about it later on.

Even Mr. Meta himself Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t show his kid’s faces on the app. And yet people with public accounts and thousands, even millions of followers, post their children on Instagram with reckless abandon.

As a person who spent many years sharing lots of her life online as a blogger and influencer, I can say with certainty, it’s not as simple as deleting photos if you change your mind about things you’ve shared.

Having posted photos of my daughter as a baby on Instagram, I had the unthinkable happen. A stranger approached her in a park while with her caregiver. She addressed her by name, made up a completely false story about being my college roommate and having drinks with me the week before, and then asked for my contact information.

If you’re thinking, WTF?! Yes, it still haunts me. Unfortunately it took that experience to wake me up to the reality of posting my child online, but it shouldn’t have.

As a millennial parent with nostalgia for being a kid in the late 80s and 90s, I wonder how much of that has to do with the fact that I experienced childhood offline. There was a freedom to that existence.

It’s clear that we can’t rely on companies like Meta to protect children from their app. Just last week a whistleblower testified before Congress that the app knowingly pushes content to teens that promotes bullying, drug abuse, eating disorders and self-harm. Internal company documents also revealed that Meta is essentially a marketplace for pedophiles.

Sharing our children online has become far too normalized at a time when they deserve privacy, the right to own their identity, and the ability to tell their own story. I made that realization when my daughter was 1.5 years-old, which felt a year and a half too late.

I can’t change the past, but I hope sharing my experience can shed some light on this issue. Aside from all the obvious concerns about sharing kids online (safety, identity theft, privacy, the permanence of digital content), it really comes down to consent. And if your child isn’t old enough to knowingly give it to you when you’re sharing them online, maybe it means it’s time to reconsider.