By Sarah Toner, ITV News Producer
A former ‘kidfluencer’ who shot to fame aged just 13 says she will “live with the consequences” for the rest of her life, and is calling for a UK code of conduct to safeguard children involved in commercial online content.
Beckii Flint, who became a teen YouTube star and household name in Japan, told ITV News she still has “feelings of anxiety” and stress from going viral at such a young age.
Now she is calling on marketing agencies, brands and parents to think about the dangers facing children who promote themselves or commercial brands on social media.
Beckii’s YouTube videos went viral in Japan
Children’s presence on social media is a common occurrence, with 77% of children aged eight to 17 having profiles, and a third of children aged five to seven.
Aspirations to be a so-called ‘kidfluencer’ is also growing with a recent survey by The Harris Poll finding today’s children are more likely to aspire to be a YouTuber (29%) than an astronaut (11%).
The UK’s top ten ‘kidfluencers’ collectively have more than 57 million subscribers and 19.18 billion video views.
According to PR experts, UK child influencers could be earning thousands of pounds per post through brand deals, but this number varies drastically depending on how many followers they have.
In the US, Ryan Kaji, 13, is believed to be worth $100 million (around £750 million) through his unboxing videos on YouTube, some of which have accrued more than 80 million views.
Similarly, Anastasia Radzinskaya, also known as ‘Like Nastya’, an 11 year-old Russian influencer, has 127 million followers on YouTube and reportedly brings in $28 million (£21 million) a year.
According to Cosmopolitan, one family blogger Garrett Gee of ‘The Bucket List Family’, insists they post online for themselves, as a way to document home videos and pictures.
“When something special or exciting is happening, Dad will whip out his camera because he wants to capture this special memorable moment like any parent would do.”
He added: “It comes down to my judgement, my call as a parent. Because I would never want to put anything out that the kids are either embarrassed by or ashamed of or anything.”
The trailer for “Bad Influence: The Dark Side of Kidfluencing”
The call for regulations come weeks after Netflix released ‘Bad Influence’, which shines a light on the darker side of the industry, exposing how adults can exploit and manipulate young people for their own financial gain.
The documentary follows Piper Rockelle, her mother Tiffany Smith and a group of child YouTubers called the ‘Squad’.
Tiffany set up her daughter’s YouTube channel when she was just eight and gradually added other children to Piper’s videos – which became known as the ‘Squad’.
In 2022, 11 former members of the Squad filed a lawsuit against Smith, alleging violations of child labour laws, alongside being subject to “inappropriate, offensive and abusive treatment” including “wildly offensive and sexually explicit comments” from her.
At its peak, Piper’s account was making more than $500,000 a month from her content.
Beckii started appearing on YouTube in 2009, posting videos of herself dancing to Japanese pop music. The content quickly went viral, with one post gaining more than 3.5 million views.
“One day I woke up and there were thousands of notifications in my inbox,” she told ITV News. “I was like ‘Oh my God, something is going on on my video’.”
As the views increased, so did the hate comments, which Beckii says had a lasting impact on her.
“Certain usernames will still pop out of the woodwork, people who might have been part of harassment or cruel comments, these things do really stick in your mind even after many many years have passed,” she said.
She also said some fans managed to find out where she went to school and would send parcels there, addressed to her.
Like many modern-day child influencers, Beckii’s online fame soon migrated to the real world, where she became so popular that she was signed by a management company. She was given recording contracts in Japan for her own music and as part of the K-pop girl group Cruel Angels.
Her success also led to commercial campaigns. She told ITV News of one incident where she was pressured to wear a bikini for a photoshoot aged 13.
“There was this expectation that I would be doing these things that the other Japanese pop idols were doing at a similar age, such as swimwear photo shoots.
“My family decided very quickly that that wasn’t going to be something they were comfortable having me participate in.”
Although there were positives to her experience, she has regrets about some of the stuff she shared online.
“I made decisions when I was very young that have affected my privacy for the rest of my life, people know exactly where I was born, what street I grew up on, my information is very much out there and it always will be.
“It’s been difficult for me, I have feelings of anxiety, a lot of like stress has been caused by some situations from when I was young and going viral and I will probably live with those consequences for the rest of my life.”
The now 29-year-old, who runs her own social media agency, is working with marketing agencies, brands and parents to create a responsible ‘kidfluencer’ pledge to help protect other children from the mistakes she made.
“The Online Safety Act doesn’t necessarily go far enough as to protect the child influencers who are at the heart of these situations,” she said.
YouTube does has specific guidelines for content featuring children, emphasising parental supervision and age-appropriate practices.
Children under 13 are not allowed to create their own channels, and those between 13 and 17 require parental consent.
But Beckii wants something in place to protect the finances of these children and rules around their working hours.
“If you’re a child of a family blogger, then every day, 24 hours, you could be behind the camera, you could essentially be working,
“Some of these kids are ending up supporting their whole families from the success of their social media content.
“It becomes quite unbalanced quite quickly and I can see where, some of the best practices might get moved to the side.”
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Despite the popularity of child influencers and family content creators, the industry is still largely unregulated in the UK.
The Online Safety Act has increased protections for child viewers, but there is no guidance on the protection of ‘kidfluencers’ creating the content.
MPs have previously raised the need for guidance on this.
In 2022 the Digital, Culture and Sport Committee published a report on influencer culture, calling on the government to strengthen employment and advertising laws to protect children but no action has been taken.
A government spokesperson told ITV News: “We recognise the rise and impact of influencer culture on both traditional and digital media, as well as the potential for children to be exploited as consumers of influencer content and as influencers themselves. “We will continue to monitor the current frameworks in place.”
In America, some states have passed laws aimed at protecting ‘kidfluencers’ and improving their working conditions.
In California, for example, content creators who feature minors in at least 30% of their content are required to deposit 65% of the minor’s gross earnings into a trust account.
The state has also expanded existing child actor laws to include child influencers, ensuring they receive similar protections.
The dangers of child-focused content goes beyond money and legal working practices, there have been harrowing cases in the US of brutal child abuse both in front of and behind the camera.
In 2024 popular parenting advice YouTuber, Ruby Franke was jailed for at least four years after police found she had kept her six children in a “concentration camp-like setting”.
The 41-year-old chronicled her family life on her now-defunct YouTube channel, but was arrested after two of her six children were found abused and malnourished in August 2023.
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