Illinois Law Requires Earnings of Child Influencers to be Put in Trust Starting in 2021

Illinois has become the pioneering state in the United States to guarantee payment for child social media influencers, as stated by Senator David Koehler of Peoria. The bill, which was sponsored by the senator and recently signed into law, is set to take effect on July 1, 2024.

“The rise of social media has given kids new opportunities to make a profit,” Koehler said in an emailed press release after the bill was signed into law Friday afternoon. “Many parents have taken this opportunity to pocket the money while pocketing their children to work in these digital environments.”

The idea for the law, which covers children under 16 on commercialized online platforms, including video blogs (also known as vlogs), was presented to Koehler by a 15-year-old in his district, the Democratic senator said.

In addition to coordinated dances and hilarious toddler comments, family vlogs today can share intimate details of their children’s lives—grades, potty training, illnesses, misbehavior, first periods—for countless strangers to see. Branding deals featuring Internet darlings can fetch tens of thousands of dollars per video, but so far there are minimal regulations on the “sharenthood” industry, which experts say can cause serious harm to children.

“Videos with kids do really well,” said Bobbi Althoff, a TikToker with more than 5 million followers who featured her young daughter in a paid ad but has since decided not to for privacy reasons.

Many states already require parents to set aside credits for child entertainers who appear in more traditional settings, such as movies and television, but Illinois’ law is the first to specifically target social media stars, according to Landon Jacquinot, who tracks child labor laws. to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

“We could see other states planning something similar, especially states with a lot of family vloggers and social media influencers,” such as California and New York, Jacquinot said. “It’s kind of a new world.”

Illinois law entitles child influencers to a certain percentage of revenue based on how often they appear in vlogs or online content that generates at least 10 cents per view. Content must be created in Illinois and at least 30% of the content must be exposed to children within a 30-day period.

Video bloggers – or vloggers – would be responsible for recording the children’s appearances, and would have to set aside the gross earnings for the child in a trust account when they turn 18. otherwise, the child can sue.

Children “deserve protection from parents who would try to take advantage of their children’s talents and use them for their own financial gain,” said Alex Gough, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s spokesman when the governor signed the bill.

Shreya Nallamothu, the teenager who brought her concerns to Koehler and launched the legislation, first zeroed in on the issue while browsing social media during quarantine three years ago.

“I realized that there is a lot of abuse that can happen in the ‘child scam’ world,” said Nallamothu, now 16. “And I realized that there is absolutely no legislation to protect them.”

He clarified that the law is not aimed at parents who share pictures of their children on social media to family and friends, or even those who post a viral video. “This is for families who get their income from kids vlogs and family vlogs,” she said.

In Illinois, where Democrats hold a supermajority, lawmakers passed the law in May with bipartisan support.

Other Democratic-led states have sought to regulate the child pornography industry with less success. California’s 2018 child labor law included a social media provision that was removed when it was passed. Washington state’s 2023 bill, spearheaded by Chris McCarty, another teenager and founder of Quit Clicking Kids, an organization focused on protecting minors who are trafficked online, stalled in committee.

“I sincerely hope that this momentum continues in other states and eventually across the country,” McCarty said Friday of the Illinois law.

But several Republican-led states have loosened child labor laws this year to help ease labor shortages. An Iowa law signed in late May allows teenagers to work more jobs and longer hours, and Arkansas in March eliminated permits requiring employers to verify a child’s age and parental consent.