‘They should not fear being mandated’: Shari Franke backs House Bill 322 to protect child vloggers in Utah

Primarily due to the efforts of Shari Franke, Utah has introduced H.B. 322, which will establish protections for child vloggers if it passes.

Franke, the author of The House of My Mother: A Daughter’s Quest for Freedom, has been vocal about ending the exploitation and abuse of family vloggers since the arrest of her mother, Ruby Franke, on charges of aggravated child abuse. Ruby ran the popular family vlogging channel 8 Passengers, where she documented the daily lives of her and Kevin Franke’s six children. However, Franke has since come forward as a victim of family vlogging, revealing how she could not consent to being on camera, was bribed to appear in vlogs, and suffered the toll of the lack of privacy. In her memoir, she further reveals that she and her siblings were emotionally abused by their mother while having to pretend to be a happy family on camera.

Now, she is determined to stop the exploitation of family vloggers. While she’d like to eradicate family vlogging altogether, she acknowledges it’s a big and challenging mission to accomplish. Hence, she’s focusing on first regulating family vlogging until a more permanent solution is found. Thanks to her efforts, Utah has finally introduced legislation to protect the children of family vloggers.

Shari Franke urges her followers to support HB322

Recently, Franke confirmed that she helped draft Utah’s HB322, which Rep. Doug Owens introduced on January 27. If passed, the bill would offer basic protections to the children of family vloggers, including ensuring they are compensated and have control over their social media presence. It “requires that a minor’s parent or guardian establish a trust for the minor featured in social media content.” The bill will also “establish a formula” to determine what percentage of their earnings a content creator must set aside for their child’s fund. The other significant aspect of the bill is that it “grants an individual featured in social media content as a minor a right of deletion.”

On Instagram, Franke explained the right to deletion: “It would also allow children influencers, at 18, to have any content they appeared in to be removed from all social media platforms.”

The bill is a simple and excellent way to start regulating family vlogging. The mandate to pay child employees in the family vlogging business should be the standard everywhere. Vlogging is child labor and, just like child acting, should require payments and trusts to ensure they are compensated. Giving children of family vloggers the right to deletion is also a brilliant idea. One of the major problems with child vlogging is that even if the child says they agree to be filmed, they’re still a child, so they can’t really consent. It’s only fair that, once they are old enough to consent, they can decide not to be on social media and to have any content they appeared in removed. Between the payment requirement and the right to deletion, the bill gives some power to the children instead of allowing parents to have all the power.

Unfortunately, Franke revealed that vloggers and lobbyists in Utah are already “ACTIVELY fighting for this bill to not pass.” Given the scrutiny around family vloggers and Ruby’s arrest, the families who have continued vlogging claim to be “ethical” family vloggers. Hence, Franke notes, “They should not fear being mandated to pay their children,” especially since many already claim to be compensating them anyway. Additionally, if these families have the children’s “consent,” as they claim, the right to deletion shouldn’t be an issue. It’s quite concerning that this bill is even considered controversial or may have a chance of not passing. It should be common sense to compensate children of family vloggers for their labor and give them control over their online image once they’re old enough to understand social media.