Laws ensure professional child performers are safe, educated and not working too many hours. But they don't extend to stars of popular YouTube channels.
The lighthearted videos appeared to be scripted, edited and neatly produced, and featured their young stars engaging in wholesome mischief as playful music hummed in the background.
"It's the wild, Wild West," said Anne Henry, co-founder of BizParentz Foundation, a nonprofit serving families with children in the professional entertainment industry that has advocated for more oversight of minors who star in YouTube videos. In a statement this week, YouTube said it works with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to arrest and convict anyone whose account depicts harm to children, adding that last year, it terminated and reported 46,000 offender accounts.Professional child actors working for major production companies are covered by strict legal safeguards.
Nothing of that sort exists for children who star in popular YouTube videos. And some child safety experts say it would be an impossible request of YouTube to expect them to monitor abuse or neglect happening off-camera. Ryan Hanlon, vice president for the Washington-based National Council for Adoption and a former practitioner who used to vet adoptive families, said the screening process is so rigorous that it's uncommon for children to be placed into unsafe homes.
"Adoptive children, in particular, are already more vulnerable to feeling like they have to earn their keep or to feeling like if they don't perform, that they'll be given back or given away," Goldman said."I think with any kid who is a social media presence or star, it's healthy to regularly check back in with the child to make sure that they don't feel that their world and love is conditional on their performance.
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