Disgraced youtuber Ruby Franke's daughter Shari says she's a 'family vlogging victim' - but would laws help?

Shari Franke, now aged 21, who is the eldest of the disgraced mum influencer and family blogger’s six children, has called herself a ‘victim of family vlogging’.

She testified in favour of laws protecting child influencers and told Utah lawmakers that "there is no such thing as a moral or ethical family vlogger”. She was part of her mum's videos posted to the hugely popular YouTube channel 8 Passengers, which had 2.6 million subscribers and was still active up to the time of Ruby Franke's arrest for child abuse in August 2023.

Speaking at a Utah Senate committee hearing, Shari told lawmakers: "There is never ever a good reason for posting your children online for money or fame." She added that her own experiences as the child of a family vlogger are a “prime example of the harm that is often done” to children who are placed in to the “influencing space” without their consent.

She gave her testimony as proposals for child-influencer laws continue to move through a handful of states across the United States. Three states; Illinois, Minnesota and California, have officially passed the laws which will include financial and privacy protections for children featured in monetised online content. There is a similar campaign in place for legislation to be introduced in the UK.

But, is such legislation needed? My opinion is yes, it is. It’s tragic that such an awful, and thankfully rare, case as the Ruby Franke case is what brings this issue to the forefront of people’s minds and before the courts, but it is an issue that needs addressing. There are so many parenting bloggers and influencers, and though thankfully the majority of them are loving and no crimes have been committed, it’s only right that there are measures in place to ensure that the children are properly looked after when they are not actually in a position to be able to consent to being included in online content.

I don’t agree with Shari’s view that "there is no such thing as a moral or ethical family vlogger”, as I know there are plenty of examples of perfectly moral and lovely mum (or dad) influencers - but I can completely understand that Shari’s view has been formed by her own terrible, tramautic and extreme experiences.

Shari went on to tell legislators: "My mother, Ruby Franke, is the prominent family vlogger that was arrested last year for child abuse. I don’t come today as the daughter of a felon, nor as a victim of an abnormally abusive mother. I come today as a victim of family vlogging. When children become stars in their family’s online content, they become child influencers. It is more than just filming your family life and putting it online. It is a full-time job, with employees, business credit cards, managers, and marketing strategies."

She spoke about getting rewards like holidays and shopping trips in exchange for filming "particularly embarrassing" content as a child, but said that there are no state laws in place to protect the money made by the parents due to what she called their children's labour. She went on to compare the experience as the child of a family vlogging channel to having Stockholm syndrome, saying child influencers may think they have control over what is posted when in reality, their parents use shame or bribes to convince them to do what they want.

Ruby Franke was sentenced to up to 60 years in prison in February for physically and emotionally abusing her children. Franke had previously pleaded guilty to four felony counts of second-degree aggravated child abuse after one of her children escaped from the house and ran to a neighbour’s house, asking them for food, water and help.

Jodi Hildenbrandt, her business partner and co-founder of parenting advice YouTube channel and service "ConneXions," received the same charges and sentence. A police investigation determined religious extremism motivated the women to inflict horrific abuse on Franke’s children.

When her mum was arrested, Shari shared a post on her Instagram Story celebrating what had happened: "Today has been a big day. Me and my family are so glad justice is being served. We've been trying to tell the police and CPS for years about this, and so glad they finally decided to step up." It was also reported that she had called the police wanting to make sure her siblings were safe and had food after a neighbour previously alerted her to her mother's absence.

At the time of Ruby Franke’s arrest, four of her children were under the age of 18 and so they were taken in to care.