New safeguarding guidelines to combat dark side of child influencers

The world’s very first ‘kidfluencer’ industry guidelines are set to be launched in a bid to combat the potential exploitation of children who are thrust in front of a camera at an early age.

The University of Essex’s Dr Francis Rees is launching the safeguarding guidelines in a bid to bridge a large gap in UK and Irish law which does not protect children who appear on social media content.

It comes as the harsh realities of life for child influencers have been exposed in Netflix’s new docuseries, Bad Influence: The Dark Side of Influencing.

The new series, which delves into the real-life story of child influencer Piper Rockelle, has raised serious questions about the exploitation of children working in the industry.

Dr Rees’s research is informed by interviews and observations with family content creators, with children as young as 6 months being posed as ‘micro-influencers’ on behalf of their parents-turned-managers.

The research evidences that children could be exposed to as many as 20 different risks of harm, including to dignity, identity, family life, education, and their health and safety.

“Child influencers are not protected by traditional child performance laws like child actors or models,” said Dr Rees, of Essex Law School.

“Achieving these performances from the children can involve extremely coercive and disruptive practices and sadly the scenes in Netflix’s new series - although extreme - are not uncommon in the UK and Ireland.

“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.”

Dr Rees has worked with policymakers, major brands, and more than 300 parents in the child influencer industry to articulate these risks and has developed a ‘Kids as Content’ digital toolkit, which she hopes will help to mitigate children’s exposure to the risks of harm.

Her own research has also formed the foundation for evidence she has submitted to the UN Special Rapporteur for the Sale and Exploitation of Children.

Dr Rees hopes her new safeguarding toolkit will allow parents sharing child imagery online (sharenting) and parents of child influencers to better understand the dangers their children are being exposed to and encourage them to consider new ways of creating and managing content.

“In the absence of any legal protections, the Kids as Content toolkit acts as a guide for parents involved in sharenting or family influencer activities, giving them information and ideas on best practices and safeguarding considerations,” said Dr Rees.

“But the toolkit goes further than this and acts as a guide to inform parents about their own rights when contracting with brands and agencies.

“The guide won’t solve the problems in the industry, but I hope it will be the start of major change which will lead to proper legal protection, which fundamentally puts the rights and welfare of children first.”

The Kids as Content toolkit will launch in the UK and Ireland on May 19.

More information is available on the project page.