February 25, 2024
Hello Senator Kimberly Lightford,
I would like to talk to you about children’s safety. More specifically, children’s safety on social media platforms. A 9-year-old who has her own TikTok account posts an innocent video with her friends at the beach. In this video in question, she has on a golden bikini. The comment section is flooded with inappropriate sexual remarks from older men. This is what being lax on laws regarding children’s safety on social media turns into. On all social media platforms, an individual must be at least 13 in order to create an account. Despite this, about 40% of children surveyed admitted to using Instagram.
Children, like the one previously mentioned, are experiencing a lack of safety. They are subjected to the harsh realties of social media. Not only that, but pedophiles can access their accounts online, and this will put that kid at serious risk. The topic of kid’s posting on social media and gaining a huge number of followers is what is now referred to as the rise of “kidfluencers.” So, what are some things that could be done to protect these children?
Stricter age verification policies could be put into place to prevent a child under the age of 13 from creating any social media accounts. As of right now, platforms will ask for one’s birthday to verify age. They don’t check if that information is true, so it would be easy for a child to simply lie to get around the restriction. A process where an individual inputs their birthday and must present a document to verify that age could work. This would be like the process that dating apps use. Stricter age verification methods could work. However, it’s foreseeable that a lenient parent could just put the account in their name instead and allow the child to post whatever they want.
There are not many options to prevent parents from allowing this. On the same topic, it is also common for a parent to only post videos of their children to get views, likes, and followers on social media, especially on TikTok. All the views and attention can lead to large amounts of money coming in as a result. One example of this that I have seen in pop culture is a family known as the LaBrant’s. The account technically belongs to the children’s dad: Cole LaBrant. However, he only posts videos of his three kids. These videos get a large number of views, and this family makes a decent amount of money from TikTok.
A way to prevent the parents profiting off their kids would be to treat child influencers the same way that child actors are treated. Child actors have their money put in a trust until they are 18 and can access the money. This way they aren’t given the money right away and spend it irresponsibly or their parents cannot get their hard-earned money that does not belong to them. A benefit of this would be that ensuring parents cannot profit from their children’s hard work would mean the child would no longer be in harm’s way. A child being the center of attention on social media could potentially be disastrous. People online could track the location in which the child influencer posted. There are stories of strange packages arriving at these children’s houses. The only way to protect from creepy men stalking these children would be to spend hours blocking the men who make inappropriate comments.
Building on this subject, there should be a policy put into place to protect children’s data. Harsher restrictions put in place could allow child influencers to have better protection while uploading content. Implementing a policy like this should enforce all social media platforms to better protect accounts where a child is posting or where a child is the main feature of the account. Protecting these children’s data collection will prevent instances mentioned earlier, where the child may receive strange packages.
With all that being said, I believe all of these laws and policies would be beneficial in regards to protecting child influencers. However, I believe the most important and the main focus should be harsher data protection. This should be the main priority because their lives being put on display can potentially put these kids in a lot of danger. While children under the age of 13 gaining traction on social media is not ideal, the best way to handle this is to protect them.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to present my ideas to you and I hope that you will take them into consideration. Here are some articles I used if you want to do some further research on the topic:
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/17/state-government-policy-debates-00135979
https://phys.org/news/2023-05-opinion-kidfluencer-culture-kids-waysand.html
Sincerely,
[student name]
You've written to a state senator to raise her awareness of child safety on social media, and recommend policies to protect children. I suppose what you are suggesting is that the state of Illinois ought to pass some legislation to protect children in Illinois from social media dangers and exploitation by parents or guardians. My understanding is that states can indeed impose their own laws and rules on how the internet is used. The law about setting up trust funds for minors who are earning revenue on social media seems like it might attract bipartisan support.
I think the law that puts child actor pay into a trust fund only puts 15% of gross income into that trust fund.
State laws are indeed the mechanism for protecting children in entertainment and social media, as I don't think the federal government is in any hurry to act on these issues.
You might find this video worthwhile: Leeja Miller: Lawyer Reacts to Quiet On Set.
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