Ruby Franke seemed to be the perfect mother. As an online content creator, she amassed millions of followers and shared videos of her family’s daily life on her YouTube channel called 8 Passengers. It wasn’t until 2023 that the situation was further investigated, and people discovered the extensive verbal and physical abuse that she inflicted upon her children.
While this is an extreme case, according to the Chicago Journal of International Law, there has been an overall rise in the number of family vloggers across social media platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram, many of whom are seeking to make a career in this new area of content creation.
This situation raises safety and ethical concerns because many of these parents are profiting off their children’s online fame, often sharing private moments without their children’s understanding or consent.
Many of these channels or accounts start off with parents simply intending to share innocent or funny moments with their children on the internet. However, if these accounts go viral, they can become monetized or lead to brand deals, where content creators partner with a wide range of brands and promote their products, like Amazon or smaller brands that are more family-focused.
This monetization and the sway of increased profits could influence parents to continue making videos with their children, regardless of whether they want to or not, which can have negative ramifications. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of a Child classifies anyone under 18 as a child, and they are not able to legally give consent. Thus, they do not fully understand the ramifications of an extensive digital footprint from such a young age.
This pressure to constantly be online and act a certain way for videos can have negative psychological effects on the children involved. Shari Franke, the daughter of Ruby Franke, shared her experiences in the book The House of My Mother, explaining the trauma this abuse and pressure created for her.
Additionally, sharing extensive information about children online could increase the danger of unwanted media interactions and, in extreme cases, even stalking. Cyberstalking is the repeated use of electronic communication to harass or scare someone, and when these stalkers have more information, they are more likely to target these individuals.
These harmful situations that arise from the oversharing of children’s lives on social media give rise to the need for stricter regulations. There is a current lack of legal protections for children in online content, which clearly needs to change. Proposing stricter child labor laws for online influencers could be a first step toward better online safety for children.
All children deserve a safe and private childhood in which they can grow and make mistakes without intimate moments being shared online, regardless of the best intentions of their parents.
