to ask about family vloggers and the number of hours their children "work"?

[DoYouRememberJustinBobby]

My friend recently recommended a family of video blog makers as they have a child a similar age to one of mine. I watched, enjoyed and fell into the black hole of clicking on recommendations on the YouTube side bar. From there I found many more family vloggers, a few of which I enjoy and a number I don't but that's the beauty of free content on YouTube, you can move on and find something else you like.

However, I was recently talking to a friend who has a nephew, under the age of ten, playing a role on a television show. His appearances are highly regulated and his working hours capped. Do any of these kind of child protection laws apply to vlogging? Many of these families are vlogging 15-20 mins daily with their children taking up a bulk of the screen time. These videos are highly edited, so the time these children are performing (and for the majority, the children ARE putting on mini performances, aware of it or not) could be huge in comparison to what appears in the final edit.

Many of these children are very young (some filmed from practically conception), cannot consent to being filmed for profit and have millions of people watching them.
I'm sure the families DO put money away for them but I don't know...I feel really uncomfortable about it all.

Are there regulations these families should be following?

[MiscellaneousAssortment]

I don't think there are any regulations, it's up to them what they do in their family life.

I'm not sure about the vbloggers who do that as their profession. I expect it falls under a grey area, and depends how contracts for advertising / product trials are written.

[DoYouRememberJustinBobby]

I've yet to find even the smallest family vloggers who aren't doing it for or getting a financial gain as a result. I think making a living via your creativity in such a manner is a clever idea (not one I would ever go in for, the privacy issues are huge to me) which is obviously new meaning it is fast changing and largely unregulated. But surely children working for profit IS something which should be looked into. Perhaps the account holder of the channel that uploads shouldn't be the soul beneficiary of the ad money but it should be paid to the regular video participants at source? I don't know, it just seems to open to abuse.

[givemushypeasachance]

Imagine what the media/public reaction would be if the government announced they were going to regulate how long parents could film their own children, in their own house, going about their daily lives.

It might not be ideal, but they aren't breaking any laws. I'm pretty sure once the kids get older and more independent they won't want anything to do with their "cringey" parents youtube projects - they'll either be setting up their own channels or they'll rebel and no engage with social media at all!

[DoYouRememberJustinBobby]

give
Yep, I can totally see that point too. I take a lot of photos and videos of my children too so obviously I'm not against it at all.
But when the children are advertising to camera and bringing in money which paying to buy a house I do feel unsettled. I'm not calling these parents into question but I do think it is an interesting debate.

[franincisco]

I watch a few UK ones, they have been on TV before and they are car crash TV. Posting really boring, monotonous stuff but I just can't seem to tear myself away

The US ones are really something else though, a few seem to do it as a job, setting up various challenges and getting the whole family involved. One family's son suddenly died of an undetected cardiac problem and they had the go-pro on and were vlogging throughout the funeral, which I thought was very

[littlemissangrypants]

I used to watch a lot of family vloggers but as they have gotten bigger I feel unable to carry on watching. The money making seems to have become the main thing for the parents and they dont shy away from using their kids to make more money.
There are so many vloggers that film their naked children and vlog bath times. They even tag vlogs with bath time or diapers or similar to get more views from certain people. These parents don't seem to care when people point out that the content is not appropriate.
The vloggers also seem to have no problem with people finding their addresses and all their personal details. The kids are often encouraged to meet fans and see them as friends. Stranger danger is not a thing to youtube parents. There have already been a few vloggers that have stopped due to stalking and death threats. It's only a matter of time before something big happens.
I do think that vlogs should be removed when child nudity is involved. I also think child services should be involved in these cases. Much more should be done to protect those kids from potential harm.

[DoYouRememberJustinBobby]

Yikes Fran, I don't even know what to say regards the funeral. I feel...actually I'm not even sure what to feel about that.

littlemiss It seems there are a host of other issues to take into account, not just the over working of children. I haven't been watching long enough to see any thing like this but really are people really aiming their videos at unsavoury types for views/money? I'm agog.