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Note: This is the Legal section of the Kid Influencer article. See Talk tab for an outline + next steps.

Current Issues
The subject of kid influencers represents a relatively new area of legal discourse due to the unique factors presented. Unlike traditional roles in the entertainment or marketing industry, kid influencers are employed exclusively by their parents. Typically, kid influencers will generate revenue through endorsements and other sponsorship deals by way of contracts with companies. Sometimes, high-profile endorsement deals are a result of what is commonly referred to as “hope labor,” where free work is produced in the hopes of future compensation from brands. Since children under 13 years of age are typically unable to operate social media accounts, their parent or guardian will run it in their place and are compensated as the content creator.

Proponents of legal protections cite to risks of exposure to child predators, cyberbullying, psychological harm, invasion of privacy, and financial exploitation. These harms are exacerbated by the high profitability and accessibility of content creation. Some parents even rely on their kid influencers as a primary source of income, resulting in pressure or abuse to compel the child into continuing. Further, children are unable to consent to the use of their image, photo, or likeness, especially in situations where parents begin to document their children’s milestones as infants, sometimes even in utero.

Still, lawmakers find difficulties in crafting laws that can practically apply to kid influencers without infringing upon the rights of other parties involved. This is likely due to the nature of content creation, which mostly occurs in private within a familial relationship, making it difficult to enforce any restrictions or protections.

United States
Lawmakers in the United States face obstacles in crafting protections for kid influencers due to the First Amendment rights of minors, social media platforms, and parents. The United States Supreme Court has recognized social media as “one of the most important places to exchange views.” Parties involved may raise First Amendment concerns where they contend the law chills the speech of minors, parents, or social media companies. A law that exclusively applies to kid influencer content may be deemed as a content-based restriction, and presumed unconstitutional; thus, it must be able to survive the highest level of scrutiny used by the U.S. Supreme Court in the event of a constitutional challenge. On the other hand, a law that is too vague in its language may be struck down as having the same chilling effect. However, if the proposed law is merely a restriction on commercial speech (e.g., applying to advertisements or endorsements) even a content-based restriction would only be subject to intermediate scrutiny.

The U.S. Supreme Court also finds certain implied rights under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment when such rights are “so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental,” and has recognized parental autonomy over the “care, custody, and control of their children is perhaps the oldest fundamental liberty interests recognized by this Court.” However, this right is not absolute, and states may restrict parental control as parens patriae and maintain “a wide range of power for limiting parental freedom and authority in things affecting [a] child's welfare.”

Some lawmakers in the United States are also calling for looser child labor laws in general as a solution to worker shortages in the wake of COVID-19. Despite this, there are no laws in place to protect the financial earnings of kid influencers, and accordingly, parents are entitled to full possession over the revenue generated by kid influencing content.

Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (Shirley Temple Exception)
Federal child labor laws exist under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, but kid influencers are exempt under § 213(c) of the Act and its governing regulations. The statutory performers exemption is colloquially referred to as the Shirley Temple Exception due in part to the popularity of child actress Shirley Temple at the time of its enactment and the value assigned to child performers by Congress as a morale boost during the Great Depression. Finding the entertainment industry to be beneficial for both child actors and consumers, this exception reflects the Congressional intent to protect the careers of child performers from what they perceived at the time to be detrimental restrictions. Further, Congress does not recognize child laborers employed exclusively by a parent as “oppressive labor,” and as such, kid influencers would likely fall under the regulatory exemption for such children. Evidently, Congress has granted the states the authority to regulate child labor of performers as they please, which has resulted in unequal protections in every state.

Federal Trade Commission
Pursuant to federal law requiring “clear and conspicuous” disclosures of endorsements by influencers on social media, the Federal Trade Commission recently published a regulatory guide in response to Watchdog findings of unclear sponsorship disclosures in child-centric content. Though not authoritative on its own, the Guide warns that practices not ordinarily questioned in advertisements addressed to adult consumers may be questioned under governing F.T.C. disclosure requirements in cases where the intended audience is children. This directly applies to kid influencers, who are often endorsing products targeted for children of similar age.

Application of Coogan Laws
The California Child Actors Bill, more commonly referred to as the Coogan law, was enacted in California in response to Jackie Coogan’s 1938 lawsuit against his mother and step-father. Jackie Coogan, a famous child actor in the 1920s, was left with no earnings from his child acting profession. At the time, California law held that earnings of minors belonged solely to the parent. Coogan’s lawsuit against his mother subsequently resulted in the establishment of California's Coogan law.

Effectively, California’s Coogan law creates a fiduciary duty between the parent and the minor in relation to the child’s earnings. The law requires a portion of all minors’ earnings to be set aside in a blocked trust account. This blocked trust is now commonly known as a “Coogan Account.” Currently, Coogan Accounts for child performers are required by law in California, New York, Illinois, Louisiana, and New Mexico. However, the Coogan bill has never been applied to child influencers, likely due to the distinguishable factors between the two professions.

Kid Influencer Legislation

Effective July 1, 2024, Illinois is the first state in the United States to enact a bill aiming to protect the earnings of child influencers. Sponsored by Illinois Sen. David Koehler, the bill is an amendment to the State’s codified Child Labor laws. The bill uses a set of criteria to define “minors engaged in the work of vlogging,” and requires vloggers, typically the parents of the minor, who feature such minors in their for-profit vlogs to set aside a portion of gross earnings in a trust fund, accessible to the minor upon reaching adulthood. There is an exception for vloggers who themselves are “minors engaged in the work of vlogging.” The bill outlines the mandatory distribution methods for earnings and also requires vloggers to maintain accurate financial and work records. Notably, the bill provides the applicable minors with a private right of action to sue their parents for actual and punitive damages, should the parents knowingly or recklessly violate the bill’s requirements.

To qualify for this private right of action, the minor must be under the age of 16, and, within 30 days, featured in at least 30% of the vlogger’s compensated video content. If the video content is not directly compensated by the online platform, it must generate a revenue of at least $0.10 per view to count towards the criteria.

Illinois’ bill is modeled after its own version of a Coogan law. To avoid incidental burdens on parents who create and share non-commercial online content, the bill exclusively applies to compensated content creators. The originally proposed bill permit minors to request from any platform, permanent deletion of any compensated video segment that included their name, photo, and likeness; it also required contracts for endorsements to include a notification of the minor’s future rights. However, neither of these provisions made it onto the enacted version.

The following states are following in Illinois’ footsteps in creating legal safeguards for the earnings of kid influencers: Missouri, Ohio, California, Georgia, Arizona, and Maryland. California was recently successful in passing legislation that mirrors Illinois. Other states’ proposals include similar language to Illinois’ original bill, such as a right to be forgotten.

France
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