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Watch Shari Franke warn lawmakers about the dangers of family vlogging

Watch Shari Franke warn lawmakers about the dangers of family vlogging

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Shari Franke, the eldest daughter of former popular family vlogger Ruby Franke, testified Wednesday in support of laws protecting child influencers, telling Utah lawmakers that “there is no such thing as a moral or ethical family vlogger.”

Shari Franke, along with her five siblings, were part of her mother’s videos posted to millions of viewers on the YouTube channel “8 Passengers,” which was still active until Ruby Franke’s arrest on child molestation charges in August. 2023.

At a Utah Senate committee hearing, Shari Franke told lawmakers, “There is never a good reason to publish your children online for money or fame.” Her own experiences as the child of a family vlogger were a prime example of the harm done to children is often inflicted when they are forced into the sphere of influence, she said.

Her statement comes as proposals for child influencer laws continue to circulate in a handful of states across the country. Three states, Illinois, Minnesota and California, have formally adopted such laws, establishing financial and privacy protections for children featured in monetized online content.

Watch Shari Franke’s statement here

“There is no such thing as a moral or ethical family vlogger,” said Shari Franke

“My mother, Ruby Franke, is the prominent family vlogger who was arrested last year for child molestation,” Shari Franke told lawmakers. “I come today not as the daughter of a felon or the victim of an unusually abusive mother. I come today as a victim of family vlogging.”

“When children become stars in their family’s online content, they become influencers for children,” she continued. “It’s about more than just filming family life and putting it online. It’s a full-time job with employees, business credit cards, managers and marketing strategies.”

She described receiving rewards as a child, such as vacations and shopping trips for filming “particularly embarrassing” content, and pointed out that there were no state laws to protect the money parents made from their work Children deserve. She also compared the experience of being a child on a family vlogging channel to Stockholm syndrome, saying that child influencers may think they have control over what is posted, when in reality their parents use shame or bribes to control them to persuade them to comply.

“However, the difference between family vlogging and a normal business is that all the children are employees,” she said. “Children from before they are born until they are 18 have become stars of family businesses on YouTube, Instagram and other social media platforms.”

Franke said Utah is a hotspot for family and mom vloggers because the LDS culture around family, the goal of sharing the church and the prevalence of large families make family-oriented content all the more lucrative. That’s why she called on sitting lawmakers to “address this issue before it becomes a bigger crisis than it already is.”

Who is Ruby Franke?

Ruby Franke is a mother of six from Utah and a former popular family vlogger on YouTube. As one of the stars of the YouTube channel “8 Passengers,” which once reached millions of views and followers, she was heavily criticized online for her parenting decisions.

The Utah mother was arrested in August 2023 on multiple child abuse charges after one of her children escaped her supervision and ran to a neighbor asking for food and help. Franke later pleaded guilty to four counts of second-degree aggravated child abuse and was sentenced to one to fifteen years in prison on each count.

Jodi Hildenbrandt, her business partner and co-founder of the parenting advice YouTube channel and service ConneXions, received the same charges and sentences.

At the time of Franke’s arrest, Shari shared a post on her Instagram story celebrating the arrest, saying, “Today was a big day. My family and I are so happy that justice is being served. We’ve been trying to tell the police and CPS about it for years, and I’m so glad they finally decided to get involved.”