Kidfluencers on Social Media: An Ethical Scenario

Introduction

With the rise of technology leading to an increase in user engagement on all social media platforms, influencers have become a new way to promote businesses, products, and services through partnering with popular social media platform personnel. Organizations spend marketing dollars on sponsorships, which are then shared with the audiences of influential figures online, ultimately persuading the viewers and encouraging purchases. With the introduction and influx of influencers, there has been a significant increase in “kidfluencers,” or children under the ages of eighteen that dominate parts of the digital world. Kidfluencers are particularly involved with YouTube through the creation of vlogs, and developing and maintaining their personal YouTube channels. YouTube is owned by Google and receives a significant amount of marketing profits through using young kids to promote products, services, and brands. Influencer engagement is evident through product placement, sponsored advertisements, or by promoting the company in a video. Many of these children-run channels have bios claiming that the parents are the ones maintaining and running these accounts.

Ethical Issues and Conflicts

The most significant problem with kidfluencers in the digital age is the exploitation and vulnerability of young children. In addition, this is followed by a lack of social media disclosures regarding web influencers. Young children may become overworked and burnt out at a young age without having any knowledge of the toll it has taken on them. This, followed by lack of regulations, leads to families that continue to make videos starring their children against their wishes. Using these children to sell products or services when they lack knowledge of endorsements is a controversial topic. Although there is parental moderation on some of these accounts, it can still be difficult for the young viewers to distinguish between which products are being organically sold to them and which are promoted through paid partnerships. Young audiences consisting of minors are incredibly vulnerable to advertising which some argue is a cruel intention behind the messages being shared. Children that are too young to make an account on YouTube and various social platforms are still being exposed to these promotions by accessing their parents accounts. Due to this, YouTube created ‘YouTube Kids’ which exempts children from data collection through the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. (Common Sense Media)

Internal and External Factors

Internal Factors

YouTube, which is owned by Google, is designed for adult audiences. Children are able to create an account through YouTube Kids to enjoy videos. This type of account was created due to a federal privacy law that protects children under the age of thirteen, while still allowing children to enjoy YouTube content. Due to this, technology businesses “do not have to comply with federal rules that limit targeted advertising and data collection.” (Maheshwari, S. The New York Times) In June 2019, the team at YouTube released a blog post explaining the changes that have been made regarding children exploitation and reminding the audience of their top priorities as an organization. In this post, the executives at YouTube explain the updates made in early 2019: “Restricting live features: we updated our live streaming policy,” “Disabling comments on videos featuring minors,” and “Reducing recommendations: limiting recommendations of borderline content to include videos featuring minors in risky situations.” (Official YouTube Blog) This blog post detailed the creation of YouTube Kids in an attempt to offset minors accessing their parents accounts or obtaining an account in an inappropriate manner.

External Factors

Some argue that the YouTube team is overlooking the importance of regulations in terms of videos involving children. Child labor laws regarding performers present a grey area for kidfluencers on social media platforms. Since they aren’t considered actors, companies like Google can bypass particular regulations surrounding child performers. On the discussion of child labor laws protecting performers that are minors, “Those laws, which were designed to protect child stars from exploitation by both their parents and their employers, are not being regularly applied to today’s pint-sized celebrities, despite the fact that the major platforms, YouTube and Instagram, are based in California.” (Wong, J. The Guardian) Each state has different laws regarding child labor, but YouTube is based in San Bruno, California. The organization is required to abide by California law.

The parents of these children must follow guidelines and disclose that they are responsible for managing and maintaining the accounts of their children. Even so, the parents are the ones collecting the paychecks, yet the child in the video is acting as spokesperson for the advertised brand or product. David Pierce, co-chair of entertainment law section of the Beverly Hills Bar Association, discussed influencer deals between children and their parents: “[Pierce] theorized that influencer deals made by parents on behalf of their children could be invalid unless the earnings are owned entirely by the child, because a parent consenting to the use of their child’s image in advertising in order to enrich himself would be ‘self-dealing and in breach of the covenant of good faith and dealing.’” (Wong, J. The Guardian) This could lead to legal predicaments once the child grows up if the adults misuse these funds in any way.

Key Values

Advocacy: The value of advocacy applies to this ethical situation because it involves minors being represented in the public light. The families of kidfluencers must be responsible and follow appropriate guidelines when representing their children in the media. The professionals that choose to represent these children must be sure to send appropriate messaging and follow legal guidelines when creating partnerships. Given the involvement of both child and parent, the situation would work well as a fiduciary—if the minor were of consenting age.

Responsibility: In the blog post shared by YouTube staff members, they begin with: “Responsibility is our number one priority, and chief among our areas of focus is protecting minors and families.” (Official YouTube Blog) This value should remain a top focus for all parties involved in kidfluencer social media channels. The parental figures, companies sponsoring with the children, and the host, all must take the children into consideration before making any decisions. These young kids are going to grow up, and the actions that were decided for them as a minor will be a long-term consideration that they accept for themselves as adults.

Expertise: The executives working for large corporations such as Google and YouTube must always be knowledgeable about the latest rules and regulations regarding minors on the internet. The value of expertise applies to this scenario because of the accountability for actions, and also the responsibility of the sponsors promoting their own brand. While building relationships with the parents of these young children, they must be strategic and execute promotional materials responsibly.

Publics

Minors: A large target audience for the videos created by kidfluencers are children under the age of eighteen. These children are at risk of exploitation due to the lack of understanding around advertising, paid sponsorships, and endorsements. These children watch videos or see a sponsored post and subconsciously desire to buy that product or service because their favorite YouTube star posted about the item. The saturation of advertising within YouTube content creates a grey area for what is acceptable since many of these children are too young to discern the difference between what is organic and what is a paid endorsement.

Kidfluencers: The young children starring in these videos are often not able to understand the long-term consequences, or the magnitude of their popularity which could lead to dissatisfaction or legal discrepancies once they reach adulthood. The faces that are being broadcasted and shown in real-time on the web are the most important asset to the success of these YouTube channels. Therefore, their needs and wants should be at the forefront of every conversation regarding the social media output.

Sponsors: A company that decides to partner with a kidfluencer is at risk of representing these youths throughout their lifetime. This commitment to solely represent an individual through product or service promotion must be prepared for backlash from audiences. The controversy surrounding exploiting young children could cause a brand to lose credibility or the reputation may suffer.

Ethical Principles

With newly emerging online ethical disclosure issues, social media disclosures have become a topic of conversation and important when selecting sponsors to represent a brand. The internet enables any and all to reach a global audience at any time, for free. Professionals need to take this into consideration when sharing information, especially among young audiences.

Appropriateness for Audience: Young children that are being fed advertisements and information online lead to swift decision-making and exploitation on the minds of consumers. The team at YouTube needs to ensure that advertisements and sponsored content is appropriate for minors to be viewing, since there is not a foolproof way to get rid of any and all advertisements they may be exposed to.

Harm Principle: The harm principle states that an individual's actions are restricted if the plan could potentially harm others. Young children that are hosting or viewing these videos are susceptible to exploitation and advertising that they may have no prior knowledge of. In all cases of kidfluencers, the parents and sponsors have to limit their actions and messages in order to prevent harm to minors.

Disclosure of Information: The information regarding digital minor social media accounts specific to each state should be more accessible and transparent regarding kidfluencer relationships with sponsors and the media.

Recommendations

After analyzing and evaluating the implications of kidfluencer social media channels, I believe more boundaries with paid endorsements and advertising need to be set. I do not believe that the concept of minors making videos for social media is unethical as long as there truly is moderation and mutual decisions made between all parties. Regarding the audience of minors that is supporting the majority of this content, I feel that sponsored content needs to be explicitly transparent that it is a paid promotion and also left to a minimum so that the child is not overloaded with advertisements and product placement.

If I were given a seat at the table to discuss allowing minors to continue making kidfluencer videos, I would support the continuation of these videos. However, I would ban sponsored posts and product placement for users that are watching through a YouTube Kids account. The goal behind creating YouTube Kids was to further regulate and monitor underage children that want to watch YouTube videos so if paid promotion was eliminated for these users, the audience would not be deceived or tempted into buying a product or service.

References

“An Update on Our Efforts to Protect Minors and Families.” Official YouTube Blog, 3 June

2019,

youtube.googleblog.com/2019/06/an-update-on-our-efforts-to-protect.html.

“Is It OK for My Kid to Start Her Own YouTube Channel?” Common Sense Media: Ratings,

Reviews, and Advice,

www.commonsensemedia.org/learning-with-technology/is-it-ok-for-my-kid-to-start-her-own-youtube-channel.

Maheshwari, Sapna. “Online and Making Thousands, at Age 4: Meet the Kidfluencers.” The

New York Times, The New York Times, 1 Mar. 2019,

www.nytimes.com/2019/03/01/business/media/social-media-influencers-kids.html.

Wong, Julia Carrie. “'It's Not Play If You're Making Money': How Instagram and YouTube

Disrupted Child Labor Laws.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 24 Apr. 2019,

www.theguardian.com/media/2019/apr/24/its-not-play-if-youre-making-money-how-instagram-and-youtube-disrupted-child-labor-laws.