'Sharenting' or posting pics of your kids online may soon be illegal. Here's why.

Since the mid-2000s and the beginning of social media, adoring parents have been posting and sharing photos of their kids online. From birth through to high school graduation, this generation of kids are the first to have had every milestone recorded, shared, and commented on.

For most parents, happy snaps of their kids are shared to just family and friends. But for others, 'sharenting' or sharing photos and clips of their kids has become their job. Their brand. Their income.

The devout Christian LaBrant family in the US have over 13 million subscribers to their YouTube channel, 18 million followers across their Instagram accounts, and a similar amount on TikTok. Cole and Savannah LaBrant have monetised content of themselves and their four beautiful kids for years and their estimated net worth is in the many millions of dollars. 

But families like the LaBrants may soon lose their income stream, as France seeks to become the first country to ban parents from sharing photos of their kids on social media.

Politicians from president Emmanuel Macron's party have put forward a bill that aims to protect kids' privacy. 

"On average, children have 1,300 photos of themselves circulating on social media platforms before the age of 13, before they are even allowed to have an account," French MP Bruno Studer, who has made a career out of child safety online, said.

Watch: How 'Proud Parent Syndrome' affects your child's safety online. Post continues below.

Studer also pointed out that half of all photos exchanged on paedophile forums originate from photos innocently posted by families on social media, referring specifically and disturbingly to "naked babies or young girls in gym outfits".

This world-first legislation, which still needs to go through the Senate and another reading before it becomes law, is also backed by Charlotte Caubel, France's junior minister for children.

"We could suspend the parents' exercise of the right to children's images if they seriously abuse it," Caubel said.

"This is the case for those using the image to make money or boost their own image."

As the kids of parenting influencers, born out of the earliest days of YouTube and Instagram, reach adulthood, we are hearing more about how it feels to have your childhood shared with strangers online.

A Teen Vogue article published late last week features an interview with 'Claire', an anonymous YouTube child star who went from being a toddler to a teen online. 

Her face has adorned many pieces of merchandise over the years, and her family's YouTube channel has had over one billion views. Her parents gave up their conventional jobs to manage Claire years ago and they are now very wealthy thanks to all her hard work.

Claire wishes that none of this content existed and when she turns 18, she is considering cutting all contact with her 'stage manager' parents.

"I try not to be resentful but I kind of [am]," Claire told Teen Vogue.

On one occasion, Claire told her dad that she didn’t want to film the videos anymore, and he told her they would have to move out of their house and her parents would have to go back to work, leaving no money for "nice things".

But with no labour laws to protect her, or any idea exactly how much money her parents are keeping for her when she hits adulthood, Claire feels exploited. 

She plans to speak out about how social media stardom ruined her childhood and she wants her mum and dad to know that "nothing they do now is going to take back the years of work I had to put in".

Listen to Mamamia Out Loud, Mamamia’s podcast with what women are talking about this week. Post continues below.

The rise of social media child stars and vlogging families such as the LaBrants in the US, who have over 13 million subscribers on YouTube alone, is a relatively new phenomenon. The explosion of this industry via disruptive technology platforms that can make anyone a star, including little kids who unbox their favourite toys for huge audiences, means that lawmakers have struggled to keep up. 

In a 2019 article in The Guardian on 'kidfluencers', the writer makes the comparison between today's social media famous kids and the child actors of yester-year such as Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen or Macaulay Culkin. 

But while the levels of fame are equivalent, the difference for the YouTubers is that child labour laws do not protect them when it comes to the hours they work or the money they earn. While there is a law in place to protect youngsters in the entertainment industry in the US, it's hazy regarding social media because it depends on whether you view YouTube as an employer and making fun videos with your family as 'work'.

Unboxing toys may be different to hours spent on a movie set, but according to one former US child star Sheila James Kuehl, "It's not play if you're making money off it".

"It definitely is time to take a look at the ways parents or other adults are making money off the performance or work of minors," Kuehl added.

"The law needs to be amended to catch up with the technology."

Six years ago, an article ran in The Intelligencer magazine about YouTuber Allie, who amassed a huge audience at 13 years old through toy review videos. As the advertising money started rolling in, her mum encouraged her to keep working and making more content.

"She wanted me to be famous enough and make enough money where I could provide for the entire family," Allie told the publication.

"She would be able to quit her jobs; my dad would be able to quit his job. She always told me that she would never touch a cent, and then it became, 'I want 30 per cent; I want 50 per cent; I'm owed this.'"

Eventually Allie quit making content after developing an anxiety disorder. She later returned to YouTube as a young adult to keep making content on her own terms.

The parents hiding their children's faces online.

As more 'kidfluencer' stories like Allie and Claire's come to light, it's no surprise that a younger generation of parenting content creators are erasing their children, or at least their faces, from their content entirely.

Bobbi Althoff, a 25-year-old mum-of-two with over 3.6 million followers on TikTok, has removed her kids' faces from her content after users called her eldest daughter 'ugly' and 'stupid'.

"I have a hard time reading mean comments about myself and I’m an adult who chooses to put myself on the Internet," Althoff said. 

She decided she couldn’t let her daughter be subjected to that and deleted every identifying detail, photo, and video of her eldest daughter, who she refers to as 'Richard'.

"Richard is not always going to be my little girl. She’s going to be a person," Althoff said. 

"I want her to have the opportunity to write her own story. I’ve decided to make it my job to entertain people, but it’s not my kids' job and I don’t want to make it their job."

Althoff's decision to remove her kids' faces from social media is gaining momentum, especially after parents watched the story of Wren Eleanor play out on TikTok.

The saga began when online 'sleuths' and members of Wren Eleanor's TikTok community noticed some disturbing behaviour and trends on the account with over 17 million followers.

"This video of Wren in a crop top has been saved 45,000 times," one TikTok sleuth pointed out at the time.

More TikTok users noticed disgusting comments about toddler Wren from men asking if she 'was single' and writing that she was 'a hottie'.

Wren's mum, Jacquelyn, publicly defended her choice to keep posting content about her daughter, sharing a statement on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. 

Read more: The "Wren Effect": Why parents are suddenly deleting all photos of their kids.

In the statement, she said that the safety of her daughter is her number one priority and that as a single mum; the account has allowed her to provide for her daughter and her future. Jacquelyn added that she makes the videos for fun for a couple of hours each week and that after collaborating with law enforcement agencies (including the FBI), she has been advised Wren's likeness does not appear on any inappropriate websites.

Jacquelyn says that she understands there are people with twisted minds who prey on children, but never did she think that ordinary toddler behaviour would be interpreted as sexualised. 

She also said that people have to honour their own decisions, but she did not want others to "mum shame" her because of different parenting styles. She said she is looking forward to making more videos with her daughter.

With nasty comments directed at toddlers as well as bullying on social media of both kids and their parents, we desperately need more legislation when it comes to user behaviour online - not just around the issue of sharenting.

Whether governments around the world consider the proposed French laws as a signal to establish their own equivalents, time will tell. 

But as more and more YouTube 'kidfluencers' become adults, we will continue to hear a different side to what it means to grow up in the glare of likes, comments, and subscriber numbers. 

What do you think about 'sharenting'? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below.

Laura Jackel is Mamamia's Family Writer. For links to her articles, follow her on Instagram or TikTok.

Feature Image: Getty.