The influencer market is estimated to grow from US$31 billion to more than 120 billion US dollars in the next five yearsSome governments are responding to growing calls for rules to protect child influencers, children who have become online celebrities and brand ambassadors.
This week the EU announced plans to ban social media platforms from providing financial or material incentives to influence children under a wide range of measures that the EU says will protect minors online.
With the best child influencers in the world earn millions a yearEuropean Parliament leaders are concerned that the lure of lucrative sponsorship deals could encourage some parents to force their children to perform full-time for home photos and videos.
Although several countries and US states have developed laws to regulate their work, some experts believe that banning child influencers may not be the best approach to truly protect children, noting that many Countries generally do not have specific legal protections for child influencers, including Canada.
Regulations are expired
The EU proposal includes following the example of Australia prohibit children under the age of 16 from having any accounts on social networks without parental consent and generally prohibit the creation of accounts for children under 13.
Voices inside and outside the influencer industry told CBC News that laws to protect child influencers are long overdue in Canada and around the world.
“Regulation is definitely welcome,” said Samuel Dahan, associate professor at Queen's University School of Law. “This should have happened 10 years ago.”
“There should be rules and laws,” said Rossana Burgos, better known as Mama Bee from Bee Family (formerly Eh Bee Family)a family of influencers from Thornhill, Ontario who started using social media in 2013 and quickly achieved fame.
After a few years of making videos with her husband and two children, Burgos says partnerships with brands from Disney to Walmart allowed them to quit their jobs and make a good living producing content that mostly stars the whole family together.
Burgos says they never forced the kids to perform and filmed the videos after school and events.
She also says that after the family started making money, they started a company in which they each owned 25 percent and the profits were divided equally.
Today, her children are already adults and are trying to start careers as musicians.
She now says she is concerned about the sheer number of children being put in front of cameras to model clothes and test products.
“We've always said from day one that this needs to be monitored,” Burgos said. “You can't let just anyone with a camera start filming kids without being held accountable.”
Is a ban the best plan?
One outspoken proponent of the child ban is Karim S. Leduc, CEO of Montreal-based Dulcedo, a talent agency that caters to more than 1,000 clients, including actors, athletes, gamers, influencers and models, although there are very few children.
“I think it should be banned,” he said. “Brands are willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars. Who's to say that a financially struggling parent wouldn't see this as a welcome opportunity to make extra money and sacrifice their child's well-being?”
Kara Brisson-Boivin, Research Director, Media Smarts a non-profit center in Ottawa dedicated to digital and media literacy, says she believes the ban will “protect children from being used for development or income generation in various ways.”
However, she sees another side to the potential ban: “we also don't want to stifle or limit children's creativity or limit children's autonomy.”
While Burgos welcomes the regulation, she also says she can't back down from the ban.
She says some parents can create a safe environment for their children, and that the rise of social media has given people more creativity.
Legal and technical issues
Dahan, an associate professor of law at Queen's, raises other questions about the ban on child influencers, which he says may be too ambitious.
“The fact that the workplace is in the home makes it very, very difficult from an enforcement perspective,” he said, noting that automatically identifying content can also be challenging.
He adds that there is a question: “What exactly is a child influencer?” and whether a parent who occasionally features their children in sponsored online posts would be breaking the law.
Australia has introduced a ban on social media for children under 16, passing a world-first law through its parliament. Many parents are celebrating the move, but social media officials say it was rushed.
Other options Canada could consider
While the EU is considering banning exposure to children and Minnesota has already done this for children under 14, There are other options for protecting child influencers.
In 2020, France changed its labor laws to give child influencers the same protections that child actors or models under 16 have in the country, which includes limited working hours and having most of their earnings placed in trust for them under 18. It also requires anyone who signs up child influencers for a sponsored post to have government permission or risk a fine of up to €75,000 and five years in prison.
In the United States, Illinois, California and Utah have passed laws to ensure that parents save the money their children earn until they become adults.
There are no specific child influence laws in Canada and Internet Harm Law proposed by the federal government in 2024 do not cover them. (It did not pass due to the calling of elections.)
According to Leduc, treating them like child actors “would be a great first step in [the] the right direction to protect them from overexploitation.”
Dahan agrees that introducing legislation to allow child actors to influence children could be more pragmatic because “sometimes, as lawyers, we want to reinvent the wheel.”
The Brussels effect and what will happen next
The EU has yet to develop and adopt effective legislation prohibiting influence on children.
Dahan, who has worked in the EU in the past, says if the law is passed, it could force other countries and companies to make changes.
“EU digital regulation tends to shape global standards,” he said.
Just like Apple universally abandoned the Lightning port for its devices after EU law required standardized charging connector, online platforms may opt for a common standard for children's influencers or social media access for children around the world.
“This is what we call the Brussels effect,” Dahan said.
