Regulation could disrupt the booming “kidfluencer” business

L4sBot@lemmy.worldmod to Technology@lemmy.world – 347 points –
Regulation could disrupt the booming “kidfluencer” business
economist.com

Regulation could disrupt the booming “kidfluencer” business::undefined

24

You are viewing a single comment

Some child influencers are born to “momfluencers”, inheriting large followings before they have learned to walk. The LaBrants, a family based in Tennessee, have accumulated millions of followers documenting their lives online. They run Instagram accounts for each of their children; their youngest, aged one and four, already have 1.4m followers on a joint profile

You know, we’re just now reaching the point where there are adults who’ve had their entire lives documented on social media without their consent by well meaning parents and I think that in and of itself has always been a selfish and irresponsible thing to do. But this is a whole different level of crazy. I can’t begin to imagine the amount of greed motivating these people to rob their own children of their privacy and force them into some “kidfluencer” role before they can even talk. Those “momfluencers” may be getting wealthy from all this but they’re morally bankrupt.

well meaning

You sure about that one? Because I'm pretty sure it comes from selfishness, not altruism.

You sure about that one.

Yes. I believe the vast majority of parents since the beginning of the social media age simply never even considered the potential privacy issues at play when they filled their accounts with pictures of their kids. They were just proud parents sharing their lives with friends and family.

Just because I think it’s selfish and irresponsible does not mean I think the average parent was acting with malicious intent. Social media was brand new for everyone, I’m not going to judge someone too harshly for failing to understand that their social media activity over the years could undermine their children’s right to privacy.

Honestly, people are just trying to share pictures and life updates with friends and family. At least, the kind of people the person you replied to is referring to are. It wasn't something I thought much about until my wife (who is a teacher and more attuned to kids and privacy issues) mentioned she didn't want our kids to have a ton of people posting pictures of them everywhere. Once I sat and thought about it I was in complete agreement but it quite honestly hadn't crossed my mind before that.

That’s just sad. I was a very introverted kid and this would have done severe damage to me.

And, knowing how shit people in general are, I bet there's death threats involved if they decide they don't want those followers anymore and just want to be left alone.