Child stars on Instagram and YouTube aren't being protected by child labor laws, which were designed to prevent exploitation by parents and employers
‘Kidfluencers’ are earning millions on social media, but who owns that money? — They open boxes, play with toys, pull pranks and make slime. Tweets: @juliacarriew , @juliacarriew , @juliacarriew , @kawaiiguyla , @loisbeckett , @juliacarriew , @techworkersco , @juliacarriew , @lam_barrett , @teamcoworker , @lam_barrett , @lam_barrett , and @mhbergen See also Mediagazer Tweets: Julia Carrie Wong / @juliacarriew : Do kidfluencers work for their parents? Do they own their earnings, even if they're not allowed (under YouTube & Instagram terms of service) to own their accounts? Who is watching out for their interests? http://www.theguardian.com/... Julia Carrie Wong / @juliacarriew : Coogan went to court to try to recoup his fortune, but it was mostly gone. Still, the case prompted the California legislature to act, passing the Coogan Act, which requires parents to set aside part of a child performer's earnings in a blocked trust. http://www.theguardian.com/... Julia Carrie Wong / @juliacarriew : YouTube and Instagram have created a gig economy for child labor. I spoke to former child stars and legal experts about how “kidfluencing” is bypassing a century system of child labor protections for performers. http://www.theguardian.com/... @kawaiiguyla : Child exploitation is very real in the YouTube ecosystem and is one of the reasons I stepped away from that platform. Further protections need to be put in place to protect the young talent that are being utilized by parents to drive significant income (7 figures+ in some cases) http://twitter.com/... Lois Beckett / @loisbeckett : Hollywood's child stars have tough legal protections: 1) Limited work hours 2) Their earnings legally belong to them, not their parents 3) 15% of what they earn goes into a trust Do any of these protections apply to the child stars of YouTube? http://www.theguardian.com/... Julia Carrie Wong / @juliacarriew : The amounts of money (and therefore incentive for exploitation) are too large to treat this casually. To do that, it's important to look at what kids are doing within it's proper context. Not just opening boxes or making slime, but performing work. http://www.theguardian.com/... @techworkersco : “Outside agencies” have been tech companies' excuse to dodge basic worker protections for a while, but you'd like to think child labor laws would be taken more seriously. http://www.theguardian.com/... http://twitter.com/... Julia Carrie Wong / @juliacarriew : Child stardom is fraught for many reasons, but in California, very strict laws exist to protect kids from their employers *and* parents. YouTube and Instagram are in California, but they're not traditional studios. It's like Uber, but for child labor. http://www.theguardian.com/... Lindsey Barrett / @lam_barrett : Nobody's going to take care of these kids if it's left to the people profiting off of them pic.twitter.com/1gAENIwxZA @teamcoworker : “While today's child stars can achieve incredible fame and fortune without ever setting foot in a Hollywood studio, they may be missing out on... the strongest child labor laws for performers in the country.” https://www.theguardian.com/ ... Lindsey Barrett / @lam_barrett : this makes my skin crawl pic.twitter.com/XI2cnYio6w Lindsey Barrett / @lam_barrett : “Uber, but for child labor laws.” Uncomfortable & great piece by @juliacarriew on how parents are pimping out their children for influencer dollars http://www.theguardian.com/... Mark Bergen / @mhbergen : “I don't care if it's simply unboxing presents, that's work.” http://www.theguardian.com/... See also Mediagazer
Context & Ripple Effects
The Guardian's reporting lands a month after coverage of YouTube's unmarked kidfluencer sponsorships aimed at under-13s, extending the same question from advertising ethics to labor law: when a toddler opens toys on camera, who is the worker and who is the employer? The legal template exists — California's Coogan Act already forces traditional child performers' earnings into blocked trusts — but it was built for studios and agents, not parent-run channels.
The gap has real money behind it: later reporting found some child creators earning $20M-plus a year, and by 2023 former child YouTubers were publicly describing resentment at having their childhoods monetized, while Illinois passed the first US law entitling featured kids to a share of influencer earnings.
First-order effects
- Because YouTube and Instagram terms of service bar under-13s from owning accounts, every kidfluencer channel is legally operated by a parent — meaning the child's earnings flow into household finances with no Coogan-style trust requirement.
- Parents monetizing their children's content currently face no state oversight of hours, compensation, or set-aside earnings, unlike stage and screen child performers covered by existing statutes.
Second-order effects
- State legislatures become the enforcement path where federal child labor law doesn't reach: Illinois's earnings-share statute sets a template other states can copy, just as California's Coogan Act once spread across entertainment jurisdictions.
- Platforms like YouTube and Instagram face pressure to clarify whether family vlogging counts as commercial work performed on their infrastructure, echoing accusations that tech companies dodge worker protections by treating platform activity as outside employment.
Third-order effects
- If the Illinois model spreads, digital child performance gets folded into the same trust-and-percentage architecture Hollywood developed after the Coogan Act, forcing family channels to operate more like talent contracts than home videos.
- The longer-term fight is over who bears liability for child labor on platforms — the parent-operator, the brand paying for placement, or the distribution layer that profits from the views.
The trend: Child labor protections built for studio-era performers are being retrofitted, state by state, onto an economy where the employer is often the child's own parent and the workplace is a YouTube channel.