A new California law requires parents to set aside money earned by children's social media influencers and deposit those earnings into accounts that their children cannot access until they reach adulthood.
Governor Gavin Newsom signs the bill Pop star and former child actress Demi Lovato On Thursday, it was ordered that parents and guardians deposit a percentage of the money earned by minors on the web into trust accounts, According to the Governor's Office,
The governor additionally signed a second piece of legislation that expands the state's Coogan Law – a long-standing protection for child actors in Hollywood – to also include minors employed as online content creators.
The law requires that 15% of children's and teens' earnings be placed in a trust that remains untouched until their 18th birthday.
These protections will ensure that minors featured in online content “are protected from financial abuse,” Newsom's office said.
“In old Hollywood, child actors were exploited. In 2024, it's going to be affecting kids now,” Newsom said in a statement.
“Today, that modern exploitation ends through two new laws to protect young influencers on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and other social media platforms.”
The Golden State's law follows that of Illinois, where legislators State child labor law amended Including children featured on their parents' or guardians' social media accounts.
The bill specifically states that children under the age of 16 should receive 15% of an influencer's gross earnings if they appear in at least 30% of monetized content online. The mother, father, or guardians must be responsible for placing the earnings into a trust account.
Over the past several years, especially with the explosion of social media, “sharing” content online has emerged as a lucrative business.
Examples include “family vlogs” that document a family's daily life to brand-sponsored campaigns that feature children advertising clothing or products.
According to Johanna Grange, a mother of two and co-founder of Chicago-based social media marketing firm Oak Street Social, an influencer with more than one million followers can earn up to $20,000 for a sponsored post.
People with less than 100,000 followers can still earn up to $4,000 for a sponsored post, Grange Told Good Morning America,
Some parents have turned their children's lives into careers, he said.
“Social media has become a premium for getting your brand across to a larger audience,” Grange told the outlet.
“Once blogging and Instagram and YouTube took off, and now we have TikTok and more, people found it to be a viable way to either work on the side or compensate full-time.”
Brooke Raybould, a Virginia mother of four boys, has amassed 700,000 followers online by sharing videos of her life as a mom. After only two years of posting, she was earning more than six figures annually.
Raybould told GMA, “It felt like I had struck gold in some ways… because I could be home with my kids, share my natural life, for a little bit of time throughout the day.” I can do some work and live a decent life.” “It was basically like a dream for me.”
The mother said she considers her work akin to running a family business where everyone helps. She said it's rare for either of her sons, who range in age from 2 to 9, to be asked to help for more than 15 minutes, but she always asks if they are comfortable participating.
“I tell them, 'Mom does this, we do this, I share it with other moms,'” Raybould said.
Chris Chin manages his 8-year-old son's YouTube channel, Keven's Adventures, which has over 733,000 followers. He said that more than a source of income, he thinks of the time spent together on camera as “bonding”.
Chin compared earning money from Cowen's YouTube channel to that of parents supporting their children in sports.
“Really, if your kid is into sports… you can say you're not in it for the money, but you're putting your kid into something competitive so that in the future, you can hope they can make a living out of it.” To make money. This,” he told Good Morning America.
“If you put (social media) in the perspective that it's just a regular activity, I think most parents start to understand it.”
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