Many people are aware of child actors, but a topic that’s not being discussed nearly enough are the children that are being used on monetized social media accounts.

Child actors have laws that protect their income and labor rights, but when it comes to family blogs and internet content there aren’t the same laws and restrictions in all but one state.

The Coogan law was created to protect the earnings of child actors from their parents stealing from them, named after child actor Jackie Coogan and it covers children in movies and TV. Jackie’s life savings was stolen by his parents, most of which he never got back despite lawsuits.

There has been some progress like the law in California in 2024 expanding to cover minors on TikTok and instagram- but it has not improved nearly enough.

Income issues aside, there’s the concept that children’s images are being used in adult settings where they do not belong. Everyone thinks there’s safety on social media but in all actuality every photo uploaded there is a risk.

Before allowing your child to film and post content, really look into the reality of what happens with public images and how truly awful some adults actually are.

Despite doing time in prison I have even been naive when it comes to assuming someone is a decent person. In 2024 a guy I went to Job Corps as a teenager in 2005 with was arrested for CP- something that I never would have expected of the guy by any means. A few months prior to his arrest I had met up with him to donate a bunch of toys for his nephews for Christ’s sake.

You truly don’t know what people are capable of so to put images of your children in fully public Internet forums there should be some form of parental responsibility to protect the children.

The children’s well being is definitely a factor that’s not focused on- especially when we have cases like Ruby Franke who’s currently in prison for abusing the same children she filmed for her YouTube Family Blog “8 Passengers”. One Netflix documentary touched on the child abuse and sexual abuse that’s occurring in these “content houses” but it’s not nearly enough of a discussion.

I have a feeling that 20 years from now we are going to have a laundry list of serious issues that were created from these gen alpha kids being forced to consume and create the content they have been for so many years.

They blamed school shootings on the previous generations exposure to first person shooting games, I wonder what national crisis will be sparked from the current generations internet exposure starting at such young ages. I’m not raising iPad kids but I am curious the long term effects these apps and technology are going to have on this generation as they get older. I made the mistake of watching Idiocracy recently…. It feels a little too realistic given the current state of affairs🫣