Before a student goes to sleep at night, they watch their favorite youtuber, Piper Rockelle, show her followers her shopping haul. Her bubbly online persona is easy to enjoy. The student falls asleep to Piper’s video playing in the background. The next morning, they wake up to a shocking buzz in the media. Netflix released a documentary where Piper’s old friends are speaking out against her mother, and it’s intense.
As social media has grown popular, varieties of influences have grown to fame. Amongst content houses, solo channels and family channels.
Some of the most controversy on YouTube stems from family channels or even accounts where minors are “managed by parents.” If the wrong parent gets a hold of a camera, a platform and just the right amount of income, their child can be subject to exploitation.
Several states have put in laws, similar to Coogan’s Law for child actors to prevent these kinds of issues such as Illinois, Minnesota, California and Utah with more states in the works. All of these laws have one thing in common being that whatever money made from the content a child influencer is in, they get a percentage of the earnings no matter what platform they are posting on.
California’s child influencer laws were implemented on Sept. 26, 2024. Governor Gavin Newsom signed two bills, Senate Bill 764 (SB 764) and Assembly Bill 1880 (AB 1880). SB 764 states that creators who feature minors in over 30 percent of their content deposit a 65 percent of earnings into a trust account for the child until they turn 18, according to ABC News.
This also presents the solution of family channels and parent managed creators simply moving locations.
The biggest concern when it comes to the media is the kids. Considering kids have little to no control over their accounts when it’s parent managed it shifts the blame to parents. Depending on the platform and fans you intend to attract, being online can get kind of scary.
There are platforms such as brandarmy.com where the minimum age for creators to join and have a profile on BrandArmy is 13, but in order to pay and subscribe to content users must be aged 18 and up. Promoting adults being able to buy and view exclusive content by minors. Many compare it to OnlyFans for minors.
A big content creator on BrandArmy is Piper Rockelle and she is 17. Piper is facing controversy on the topic of her mother, Tiffany. New stories surrounding Tiffany have surfaced now that the Netflix documentary “Bad Influence” has been released.
In the docuseries, Piper’s old friends she used to make content with share stories about sexual assault and scary living situations under the control of Tiffany.
It makes many viewers wonder what content creation is like for minors behind closed doors, and how many adults can get away with exploiting minors by hiding behind the words “Parent managed” in the biography of an account.
Dr Francis Rees, the principal investigator for the Child Influencer Project, told Sky News, “We simply have to do more to protect these children who have very little say or understanding of what is really happening. Most are left without a voice and without a choice.”
Several states are actively considering child influencer laws building upon the few states that have.