CHICAGO – Whether it’s Instagram, TikTok or YouTube, you can see adorable kids pitching products, but who’s cashing in on the cuteness?
All too often, it’s not the kids.
A new law in Illinois could make people think twice about what they post online. It’s the first of its kind in the country, as CBS News’ Elaine Quijano revealed, and it’s all thanks to one brave high school student.
Childhood pictures used to exist mostly in scrapbooks, but what was once private is now often very public, shared on social media and increasingly used by influencers to make money.
Shreya Nallamothu, a high school senior from Normal, Illinois, first noticed this child-centric content a few years ago. Some of it made her cringe. Others made her angry.
“As an April Fool’s joke, this family told their daughter that they were giving away their dog,” Nallamothu said. “And of course she started crying and they uploaded it online.
She began to wonder how all the attention was affecting the children in the videos.
“It started to bother me that sometimes these parents would film their children without their consent or in very vulnerable positions and just put it on the internet for everyone to see,” Nallamothu said.
So the then 15-year-old started researching for a class report.
Quijano: “And what did you find out?
Nallamothu: “I found out that cases of exploitation in the form of child influencing are much more common than people think, and that child influencers make a lot more money than people think. It’s a very lucrative industry.
She decided that her state senator, Dave Koehler, a Democrat from Peoria, should know what she had found.
“She wrote some letters to legislators and said, ‘This is a class project we’re doing,'” Koehler said. “‘I’m concerned about this issue.'”
Koehler introduced a bill that would require children under 16 to be paid a share of the proceeds if they appear in at least 30% of adult-created content in a 30-day period. If children aren’t paid, they can sue for their share of the profits.
Nallamothu testified before lawmakers in Springfield. The bill passed the House and Senate unanimously.
Illinois is the first state in the country to have a law protecting child influencers.
“We’re saying, OK, if you’re going to do this, we need to create some parameters around it,” Koehler said. “We’ve got to create some protections. If you’re going to use your children, who may or may not be willing participants, we need to protect their economic interests so that when they grow up they have something to show for all their efforts.”
It’s an issue that Hitha Palepu has tackled on her own. As a mother, entrepreneur and influencer in New York City, she learned early on what gets the most views online.
Quijano: “How lucrative is content that focuses on children?
Palepu: “It’s my most engaged content when my kids are even in an organic or real image, and that’s why I’m so careful about what I actually share.”
Her sons have been featured in posts sponsored by big brands like Pampers and the Gap, earning tens of thousands of dollars.
And even though New York state doesn’t require it, she set aside a share of the earnings for them from the start.
“I think there needs to be protections for children, especially when there’s money on the table and financial gain from their likeness,” Palepu said.
Her sons are now 8 and 4, and Palepu and her husband gave them the choice of whether to share their stories. They chose not to, a decision Palepu says she understands.
“How would I feel if I was 13 years old and I googled my name and I saw that certain details about me were being shared on the internet that had been read by thousands, hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions of people,” she said. “How would that make me feel?”
Figuring out how to protect privacy in the future is the next issue state lawmakers are considering, Koehler said.
“We want to be able to give a person the ability to say, ‘I want this video removed because it wasn’t done with my consent at the time,'” Koehler said. “And we have to figure out a way to do that legally and technologically.”
For Nallamothu, compensating the children is a good first step.
Quijano: “Do you think there should be a federal law to address this?”
Nallamothu: “Absolutely. I hope so. Child predation isn’t just something that happens in Illinois. It happens all over the country, and I hope that one day children who are not in Illinois will be able to enjoy these protections.
She’s helped ensure that children have a voice and something to show for their time in the social media spotlight.
The family at the centre of the dog video eventually apologised, insisting it was just an April Fool’s prank.