France Passes New Law To Protect Child Influencers (bbc.com) 48
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: France has introduced a new law to protect young social media stars. The legislation aims to regulate the hours under-16s can work online and what happens to their earnings. It also enshrines the right to be forgotten, meaning that platforms will be obliged to take down content on the child's request. The popularity of child influencers has grown rapidly in recent years, with a number of young names appearing on the list of YouTube's top earners. The change will make France a pioneer in the rights of child social media stars, the MP behind the bill, Bruno Studer, was quoted as saying by Le Monde newspaper.
The new law, which was passed unanimously on Tuesday, does not affect all children who appear on social media, but instead targets those who spend significant amounts of time working online and whose work generates an income. The change offers them the same protections as those given to child models and actors in France, with their earnings placed in a bank account until they turn 16. Companies wishing to employ child influencers must also receive permission from local authorities.
The new law, which was passed unanimously on Tuesday, does not affect all children who appear on social media, but instead targets those who spend significant amounts of time working online and whose work generates an income. The change offers them the same protections as those given to child models and actors in France, with their earnings placed in a bank account until they turn 16. Companies wishing to employ child influencers must also receive permission from local authorities.
I have always done that myself. (Score:1)
Protect my kids from Influenzas.
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You're risking that your kids will become autocrats.
Wrong way around (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd be more interested in a law that protects my children from social media influencers.
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Where do they fit in all this?
Seems a pretty glaring omission?
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"When asked whether the responsibility of limiting the amount of time spent developing their social media presence belongs to the parents, rather than the government, so and so responded with ... "
Something along those lines would be adequate IMO. The point raised by the person you are responding to is that these types of matters ought to be private matters.
In my opinion, if a 13 year-old wants to spend x hours per day "working" on their social media accounts, why should that be illegal ? I'm sure that some
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So when does it cross into child labor and exploitation? We already see helicopter parents forcing their children into beauty pageants and such, primarily to make the parents feel good.
Now there's serious money involved.
The law should be the clear line of what constitutes child labor and exploitation, not parents.
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The law should be the clear line of what constitutes child labor and exploitation, not parents.
Such laws already exist since centuries, but had loop holes regarding the parents, hence the new laws.
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The parents are often the ones pushing the children.
It's sad, but some parents see their child get popular, then see that they're the ones who get the money because they need to sign the contracts for all the sponsorship money.
Not unusual, some get greedy and sign every deal they can and push their child to produce more content so they can get more money and spen
so... the internet brought back child labor (Score:2)
the tech companies have really lost their way.
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It never went away, it just got moved into the family.
You can work your own kids many hours and not even pay them if you have a family business.
Re: so... the internet brought back child labor (Score:5, Insightful)
Uum, wasn't that always the case?
Kids always had to help out on a farm.
And dare I say: That was not he problem.
As a kid, I begged my grandpa to let me drive the tractor, mow the grass, etc. And to see the fruits of your own labor, almost felt as geear as that evening meal tasted.
The diffeence is very simple: Overburdening.
Kids are humans in training. They are playing. Which is like work, but in a protected environment. One where difficulty is adapted to your actual abilities, and you are taught things.
And it only becomes a problem, if that goes away. If you *have to*, despite it being too much. (Like being dropped into nigtmare mode in a Nintendo-hard Japanese grind RPG, but in real life.) Or you learn nothing, and it feels useless. (Example: Being something as useless as an "influencer".)
Of course in many places in the world, the parents don't exactly have a choice. It's that or starving.
But I don't think is was abusive to let me help with the potato harvest as a child in a place even more well-off than France.
It is not kids working per se. It is the same thing that should be prevented whenever possible for grown-ups too. Except the world doesn't always let us. But we can help us at least let us prevent it for our children.
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But I don't think is was abusive to let me help with the potato harvest as a child in a place even more well-off than France.
It may not have been, but I've spoken to adults who feel that the way their family worked them as a child was abusive. A ten year old doesn't have the protections from their family that a fifteen year old has from other people. A law that lets your relatives abuse you is just approval of child abuse by the state.
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> A law that lets your relatives abuse you is just approval of child abuse by the state.
A law that compels a child to be abused by unrelated adults - to be deconstructed in personality and morals replaced with that of the cult - is called public education by the state.
Nowhere else in life are you required to be in an environment of abuse without recourse. Except maybe prison, and some people make that analogy consciously.
The state should be the last 'authority' on matters of consensualism.
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The law does not compel that. It requires that children be educated, and if you can't do or contract it yourself, the state will handle it.
I agree that most states don't do a great job of it, but not that the principle is incorrect.
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The law [...] requires that children be educated, and if you can't do or contract it yourself, the state will handle it.
That definitely varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Many countries put homeschooling parents in prison.
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Many countries put homeschooling parents in prison.
Only if they do not pay the fine for not sending their kid into public school.
You can home school a much as you want. However that is not an excuse to put the kid not into a public school.
AND: in case you are qualified you can actually get a permit from the ministry to homeschool only. Aka, kids are not requited to go into public school, only the highschool diploma needs to be done in a public school.
90% of all people are not qualified to home school their
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You can home school a much as you want. However that is not an excuse to put the kid not into a public school.
Then what is an excuse? Evidence that conditions in public school are prison-like?
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The law ...
And a I mostly live in europe and Thailand, the conditions are most certainly not prison like :P
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the tech companies have really lost their way.
Way back before the Internet . . . folks used to get newspapers delivered to their homes by "paperboys" who serviced a "paper route".
"Paperboys" were mostly preteen males who were forced to get up in the morning at obscenely early hours, but could get revenge by tossing your newspaper into the bushes instead of onto your lawn if you didn't give a big Christmas Tip.
I don't live in the US any more, but I'm guessing that the "paperboy" species is extinct.
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Way back before the Internet . . . folks used to get newspapers delivered to their homes by "paperboys" who serviced a "paper route".
"Paperboys" were mostly preteen males who were forced to get up in the morning at obscenely early hours, but could get revenge by tossing your newspaper into the bushes instead of onto your lawn if you didn't give a big Christmas Tip.
I'm not sure where you lived in the US but I doubt that any (at least the vast majority as there may have been a case or two) of the paperboys "were forced to get up in the morning at obscenely early hours" to deliver papers. They chose to deliver papers and as part of that job they did need to get up early to deliver the paper before other people woke up (so they could read the paper while having breakfast). If the paperboy didn't want to get up that early to deliver the paper I highly doubt they were forc
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They chose to deliver papers
The state chose for them, as child labor laws banned most other forms of employment before age 16.
At least children have parents... (Score:2)
What is a lot more worrysome, is all those people that think they are mentally mature individuals, but de-facto mostly think passively and never actually became individuals, *and* have the power to vote/buy/... *and* are not eveb aware of it.
Don't get me wrong: We are social animals. Your species can be as smart as it wants... if every individual has to learn everything by itself, it can't compete with somebody who stands on the shoulders of giants. And even if much of that information is wrong ... We can't
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We've just read an article about how France tweaked it's child labor laws to cover social media influensers, If it inspired you to reflect on existential issues is great, but there's so much context missing from that train of thought that it seems offtopic. I just want to encourage you to continue the discussion in a more suitable forum as this thread seems like something that would be modded down although posted in good faith.
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France should instead teach kids in school, how to become a person of their own. An individual. How to actually become mentelly mature.
Oh, and change job culture so parents are actually able to raise their children, on top of teaching them how to do that.
There is a huge difference between France and Germany, especially job culture and child education.
Perhaps you might want to check into that.
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Companies wishing to employ child influencers must also receive permission from local authorities.
France permits child labour?
I couldn't mention a country that doesn't have some exceptions, like child actors.
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He was ignoring them, and the situation. Enjoy your map.
are the agents in France and will YouTube try to t (Score:2)
are the agents in France and will YouTube try to say that the agent owns the account so we don't have to offer direct pays to the bank?
Earnings (Score:3)
with their earnings placed in a bank account until they turn 16
no more influencers under 16
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And would that be such a bad thing? 8^)
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comment (Score:2)
Can't believe no one said it yet (Score:2)
Who's deciding when they "work" now? (Score:2)
If it is, who is deciding whether or not to hit record? If it's the kid, what are lawmakers trying to regulate? The amount of time a kid spends screwing around with a camera? The amount of time they spend screwing around on YouTube?
Could it be that "child influencers" is, no matter how you read the
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That is easy: It is work if you are paid to do it.
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Depends on jurisdiction.
In Thailand it is work if you do it for some other person. Regardless of payment or any benefit.
In Germany it is work if it gets "compensated" somehow. If paint you room, and you invite me for dinner: it is work.
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In Germany it is work if it gets "compensated" somehow. If paint you room, and you invite me for dinner: it is work.
Only if you are a professional. Amateurs can help out without it counting as work.
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Helping out is not work.
Work is if you do it regularily and receive some "income". (In Germany. In Thailand "helping out" is work, and requires a work permit.)
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what are lawmakers trying to regulate?
Read the summary, perhaps? At least once?
The law regulates that parents can not force their kids to publish shit on social media.
Wow, that was so easy.
Based on my experience with a teen (Score:2)
The legislation aims to regulate the hours under-16s can work online
So this law probably says the kid can't work past 9PM... what it really needs to say is that the teenager can't work before Noon as that is considered cruel and unusual punishment to have to be awake that early. Now 2 or 3 AM, no problem - they are awake then anyway.
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Holding funds hostage until 16 is a bit much... (Score:2)
They should make the funds available at 13, since that is the widely accepted age for people to have their own social media account.
In my state people as young as 14 can work, they get paid like anyone else, no banks holding onto their money...