On Wednesday, Aug. 29, Ruby Franke, known as the mother in the infamous YouTube channel, “8 Passengers,” was arrested on six counts of child abuse. The news broke the internet, flooding comment sections with words like “finally,” or “about time,” and leaving supporters relieved that after years of abuse, the children of the family would get justice. But how long will it take for the audiences of these channels to realize that these family vloggers do not have the “perfect lives” they claim to have on-screen, and are openly exposed to the menacing nature of the internet?
Viewers have made numerous abuse allegations against family vloggers, but action has rarely been taken. With Franke’s recent arrest, the children were reported to have been malnourished, begging for food and water while sustaining open wounds covered in duct tape. Publicly, “8 Passengers” have showcased sending one of their sons to a wilderness therapy camp after pulling a harmless prank on his younger brother, taking their kids’ beds away and refusing to send their preschool-age daughter a lunch. Abuse appears in many other forms on YouTube, including emotional and verbal. For example, the LaBrant Family pranked their eldest daughter, who was six-years-old at the time, stating they would take her dog away, causing her to cry as her parents filmed her reaction. Additionally, the LaBrants pulled their eldest out of school in order for her to help take care of her three younger siblings. No child should have to take in such an immense responsibility or feel obligated to pose for the camera while enduring emotional harm.
As a child, like many other 21st-century kids, I frequently browsed YouTube for the eye-catching thumbnails targeting young viewers, such as trips to Disneyland, the “Eat it or Wear It” trend and more. As I matured, I began to grow suspicious and encounter obvious issues in many family channels, who often have over one million subscribers. The naivety of kids like me tuning into daily vlogs provides these families with the perfect opportunity to make a profit off of their own children. As minors, most of the kids behind their parents’ cameras do not have the ability to give consent, with these daily videos violating their privacy. An adult posting their “day in the life” videos, regarding personal topics, choose to share their lives with the internet, out of the children’s free will. While nothing is wrong with sharing a funny video or an adorable picture of your son at his first birthday party with friends and family, children constantly being in front of cameras and having their faces spread around social media for everyone to see, the line should be drawn.
Multiple channels, including “8 Passengers,” filmed their kids in times of crisis, such as sickness and injuries and even forced them to speak on uncomfortable topics such as puberty. Instead of these parents offering love and consolidation during these formative times, their kids’ vulnerability is exposed for people to witness. The obvious discomfort reflected through the screen is enough to demonstrate their inability to refuse air time. A child could tell their mother that they do not want to be filmed, but they ultimately have no power over whether the video goes up or not. In the future, these children may feel embarrassed or troubled that some of their most difficult moments were documented and posted on such a large platform, but that video will never go away. When a parent prioritizes picking up their vlog camera before their car keys while claiming to “rush” to the emergency room to help their hurting child, a red flag should wave immediately. Yet, some do just about anything for money; these parents’ priority is not their children — it is money.
Moreover, publicly releasing a child’s image on social media discloses personal information to dangerous users online. Children are left open to the view of countless pedophiles who have followed their lives for a large fraction of their childhood. The thought of a newborn baby growing up on YouTube in the eyes of a predator is sickening and should reveal a larger issue in the media as a whole. According to a study by the Wall Street Journal, Stanford University and the University of Massachusetts, Instagram has turned into a “vast pedophile network,” making the harm of sharing one’s children on the media extremely evident. The threat of “digital kidnapping,” when a stranger on the internet steals a photo of a minor and pretends to be the child or its parents, arises through every post. With the growth of Artificial Intelligence, cybercriminals have altered photos and have staged kidnappings by voice cloning, created an “older” version of a child or manipulated a photo to an inappropriate state. The dangers of posting a child on social media continue to grow with the expansion of technology.
In August, Illinois passed the country’s first law aiming to protect child influencers from exploitation, providing financial compensation for minors under 16 who appear in any sort of documentation. This moves child safety in the right direction, giving children rights to the money they made for their parents. In the age of social media, parent content creators can use their children to generate an income, but where the money really goes is a question left unanswered.
Not all family channels have a poor reputation, and some may be genuine, treating their children with proper care behind the scenes. However, this does not counteract the fact that they lack the right to consent, have been victims of exploitation, work unwillingly for financial purposes or are unable to escape the additional dangers of the media. Family vloggers have attracted a vast amount of subscribers from around the world, targeting society’s most vulnerable age group. Children featured on these vlogs and social media face the constant threat of monetary utilization, abuse from their parents and uncertainty of their presence online. Whether it be mistreatment behind the cameras or exposure to media threats, the internet is a place full of unknowns, and nothing is ever erased.
