Inside the world of 'kidfluencers' where children make thousands from social media — at a cost
Inside the world of 'kidfluencers' where children make thousands from social media — at a cost
Children are gathering large followings and earning thousands of dollars through social media influencing — but some warn it comes with a dark side.
Honestly that shit should be banned. It's the same fucking story over and over again - exploitative parents and a trail of slavering pedos
How dare you call her exploitative! She explained social media and modeling in detail to her 4 year old who can barely speak and he clearly understood everything and consented! And if the kids change their mind later and decide the parents massively invaded their privacy, it's no big deal - everyone knows it's extremely easy to delete things from the internet forever! It's not like the exact same parents were also complaining about multiple people downloading photos of their children and then re-uploading them on websites and accounts outside of the parent's control...
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While those are all valid concerns, the focus on direct harms sort of overlooks all the other ways in which social media can corrupt a child. What kind of adult do these children who grow up online, obsessed with the validation and attention of strangers, turn into? There has been a pretty alarming increase in the rates of anxiety and depression among teenagers around the world and it corresponds closely with the rise of smartphones and social media platforms like Instagram. It's really concerning to me that so many parents are not questioning this level of integration within their child's life of products and systems we know can be harmful to fully grown adults and that are intentionally designed to be addictive. The kids in this investigation were extreme examples, but "normal" children are also being exposed to this environment from an early age, with minimal supervision, during a period when we know their brains are rapidly developing and highly malleable. That should concern us more than it seems to.
This is like that magpie story, the kids and animal can't consent.
I watched this on ABC and it just felt grotesque from start to finish.
I especially enjoyed the Ava(?) kid who's mum is going on about how it's totally cool, her kid loves it, it doesn't affect her negatively... but also she cant go out in public by herself as they're worried one of her "fans" might do something to her.
Well, ok then.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Before social media, those seeking the limelight might have got an agent and pursued acting or modelling, but now influencing is a way to cut out the middleman and reach audiences directly.
"It's almost like a contagion effect," says Lyn Swanson Kennedy, who has been looking at kidfluencers in her role with Collective Shout, a group against the objectification of women and children.
AFP Commander Helen Schneider from the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation says the risks increase once children start having public profiles and have people following them that they don't know.
Meta estimates about 100,000 children using Facebook and Instagram receive online sexual harassment each day, including "pictures of adult genitalia", according to a US court case.
Australia's eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, says there is a perverse incentive for social media companies, including Instagram, to keep catering to these male audiences.
While Nina knows she can't stop people stealing Jerome's images, she is careful not to post topless photos of him to prevent them being misused.
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Narcissistic parents corrupting children.
One of my friends (not a close friend) is a moderately successful ‘mumfluencer’ and the whole thing is just gross. I cringe every time I see one of her videos pop up in my feed.