Should kidfluencers be banned? That’s the plan in the EU

With estimates the influencer securities industry testament upsurge from $31 1000000000000 US to over $120 billion US in the next five years, some governments are responding to growing calls for regulations to protect kidfluencers, the children who’ve become online celebrities and brand ambassadors.

This week, the EU announced plans to ban social media platforms from providing financial or material incentives for kidfluencing as part of a broad range of measures the EU believes will protect minors online. 

With the top kidfluencers in the world earning millions a year, leaders in the European parliament are worried the lure of lucrative sponsorship deals may tempt some parents to  pressure their children into constantly performing for homemade photos and videos.  

While a few countries and U.S. States have crafted laws around their labour, some experts suggest banning kidfluencers may not be the best approach to actually protect kids, and point out that many countries have no specific legal protection at all for kidfluencers, including Canada.

The EUs proposal includes following Australia’s lead in banning children under the age of 16 from having any social media account without parental consent, and not allowing accounts at all for kids under 13.  

“Regulation is definitely welcome,” said Samuel Dahan, an associate professor at Queen’s University Faculty of Law. €œIt should have been happening 10 years ago.”

“There should be rules and laws,” said Rossana Burgos, who’s better known as Mama Bee of the The Bee Family (formerly the Eh Bee Family), a family of influencers from Thornhill, Ont., who got started on social media in 2013 and quickly rose to fame.

Within a few years of making videos with her husband and two children, Burgos said partnerships with brands from Disney to Walmart allowed them to quit their jobs and make a good living producing content mostly featuring the whole family on camera together. 

Burgos says they never pressured the kids to perform, and videos were shot after school and activities.

She also says that after the family began making money, they a started a company making each of them 25 per cent owners and sharing in the revenue equally.

Today, her kids are adults trying to start careers as musicians. 

Now, she says the sheer number of children being trotted in front of cameras to model clothes and try products has her worried.             

“Since day one, we've always said this needs to be monitored, said Burgos. €œYou cannot allow just anyone with a camera to start filming kids without being held accountable.” 

One big supporter of a ban on kidfuencers is Karim S. Leduc, CEO of Montreal-based Dulcedo, a talent agency managing over 1,000 clients, including actors, athletes, gamers, influencers and models, though very few children.  

“I think it should be banned,” he said. €œBrands are willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars. Who's to say that a parent who's struggling with finance wouldn't see that as a welcome opportunity to make that extra money, and would sacrifice their child's wellbeing?”  

Kara Brisson-Boivin, Director of Research for Media Smarts, an Ottawa based not-for-profit centre dedicated to digital and media literacy, says she believes a ban “would protect children from being used to develop or bring in income a variety of different ways.”

However she sees another side to a potential ban, which is that, “we also don't want to stifle or limit child creativity, or limit children's autonomy.” 

Though Burgos welcomes regulation, she also says she can’t get behind a ban.

She says some parents can create a safe environment for their kids, and that the rise of social media has given individuals more creative power.     

Dahan, the associate professor with Queen’s law raises other issues about a kidfluencer ban, which he says might be overly ambitious.  

“The fact that the workplace is home makes it very, very complex from an enforcement standpoint,” he said, noting that automatically identifying the content could also be challenging.   

He adds there’s the issue of “what constitutes really a kid influencer?” and whether a parent who shows their children occasionally in sponsored online posts would be breaking the law.

Australia issues social media ban for kids under 16

While the EU considers banning kidfluencing and the state of Minnesota has already done it for kids under 14, there are other options for protecting kidfluencers.

In 2020, France changed its labour laws to give kidfluencers the same protection child actors or models under 16 have in the country, which includes limited working hours and a majority of their earnings being held in trust for them until age 18. It also requires anyone recording an kidlfluencer for a sponsored post to have government permission or risk a fine of up to 75,000 euros and five years in prison.

In the U.S., Illinois, California and Utah have all made laws to ensure parents save money kidfluencers earn until they become adults. 

Canada has no specific laws about kidlfuencers, and the Online Harms Act tabled by the federal government in 2024 did not cover them. (It did not pass, due to the election being called.)

For Leduc, treating them like child actors “would be a great first step in [the] right direction to protect them from over-exploitation.” 

Dahan agrees adopting the legal framework for child actors to kidfluencing could be more pragmatic because “sometimes as lawyers we want to reinvent the wheel.”

The EU still has to draft and pass actual legislation to ban kidfluencing. 

Dahan, who worked for the EU in the past, says If the law is passed it could compel other countries and companies to make changes.

“EU digital regulation tends to shape global standards,” he said. 

In the same way that Apple abandoned the lightning port for its devices everywhere after an EU law required a standardized charging connector, online platforms might choose to have a common standard kidlfluencers or social media access for children around the world.   

“That’s what we call the Brussels effect,” said Dahan.

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