A student scrolls through videos on her TikTok page after a long day at school. After some time, one pops up from a family vlog channel, centering a small child. Curious, the student goes to YouTube and begins exploring the page, stopping at a vlog of a failed April Fools’ prank on a little girl by her parents. The student keeps scrolling through videos, and the more she sees, the more she realizes something is very wrong.
This student is Shreya Nallamothu, a junior at University High School in downstate Normal, Illinois, who inspired the country’s first bill addressing the rights of these influencers. The bill, signed into law last month, ensures a portion of the earnings a child makes being featured is saved in a trust until they turn 18.
The effort was a culmination of a lot of things she observed in the child influencer industry throughout the pandemic on social media.
“I kept seeing family vlog channels and child influencers on my For You page. And so as YouTube started recommending these videos they also started showing me videos of exploitation,” she said in an interview with the U-High Midway. “As I saw these cases of exploitation, I was really surprised to see that there was nothing in place for the children, and I wanted to try to help them.”
Her initial interest in the topic stemmed from an appreciation of her own childhood and the experiences she had with her family growing up.
“To me the issue was important because I was someone who was able to grow up with a lot of those embarrassing moments tucked away, hidden safely in a cabinet and a bunch of VHS tapes,” she said. “To see these children not have the ability to opt out of being in the family blog, but then being used for money and as a cash cow for the families as their only income was just appalling to me. And I couldn’t believe that some people didn’t have the basic privilege that I was afforded.”
Now when Shreya scrolls on her For You page on TikTok or on her recommended YouTube page, she won’t see rampant child exploitation on social media, but happy kids who are protected under a law finally granting them the rights they deserve, at least in Illinois.
