Kids, Inc.
A pair of documentaries are calling attention to the dangers of child influencer content. But regulation can be difficult in an industry that blurs the line between work and home.The scenes leave a pit in your stomach. In Netflix’s “Bad Influence: The Dark Side of Kidfluencing,” two early teenagers are pressured to kiss by adults — a parent and a videographer — on camera. Hulu’s “The Devil in the Family: The Ruby Franke Story” shows the dramatic footage of Franke’s 12-year-old son showing up at a neighbor’s door with duct tape markings around his ankle, asking them to call police.The pair of documentaries, released this year, shine a light on the perils of child-centered online content. “Bad Influence” examines claims of abuse and exploitation made by 11 former members of the teen YouTube collective “The Squad” against Tiffany Smith — who ran the YouTube channel, which drew two million subscribers — and her former boyfriend Hunter Hill. Both denied the allegations, and the suit was settled for a reported $1.85 million last year.Ruby Franke, a mother of six, pleaded guilty to four counts of aggravated child abuse in 2023 after denying her children adequate food and water and isolating them as she built a family YouTube channel that amassed nearly 2.5 million subscribers before it was taken down. She will serve up to 30 years in prison.Concerns about the treatment of child entertainers have abounded since the days of Judy Garland and through last year’s “Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV,” in which former Nickelodeon actors described performing under harmful and sexually inappropriate conditions. Less examined is the working world of child influencers, who are now speaking out about the harsh, unsafe or emotionally taxing constraints of being broadcast by their parents.Viewers may be tempted to ask, “Aren’t there laws against this?”“We have pretty documented evidence of the troubling pipeline for Hollywood and child actors, but we don’t have nearly similar numbers for child influencers, primarily because the phenomenon of influencing is so young,” said Chris McCarty, the founder and executive director of Quit Clicking Kids, an organization dedicated to stopping the monetization of minors. “A lot of the kids are too young to even really fully understand what’s going on, let alone, like, actually speak out about their experiences.”Child entertainer laws — which in some cases make provisions for minors’ education, set limits on working hours and stipulate that earnings be placed in a trust — regulate theatrical industries. The world of content creators, where an account with a sizable following can generate millions of dollars a year for creators, is largely unregulated.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
