An expert has warned about the dangers children face from their own parents when they are part of the family vlogger subgenre with pressures to perform and intimate information and images being uploaded to be accessed by anyone, with any intent

As new details emerge about the life of alleged child abuser Ruby Frankeand her family, whose lives were documented on YouTube, an expert has spoken out about the dangers of ‘family influencers’.

Rachel Abrams is the author behind the paper ‘Family Influencing in the Best Interest of the Child’, published in the Chicago Journal of International Law and a third-year law student at the university. She first became interested in the family influencerniche as videos had come up on YouTube in her recommended section.

“I had watched them and there was a weird voyeurism to them,” Rachel said. “Getting to see these families living, in a lot of cases, these idealistic lives, and the kids are really cute, and it’s comforting because it feels like you’re watching someone’s home videos.”

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However, she explained that “over time” as she began to read more about the families and research them to see what’s being said about them she became more uncomfortable. Rachel said: “I stopped watching them because I realised how problematic they were, but I also started thinking about what the real-world implications are.”

Ruby Franke charged with child abuse

Ruby Franke was the mum behind the successful ‘8 Passengers’ YouTube channel where she shared videos from her daily life with her husband, Kevin and six children. But in August, she, along with business partner Jodi Hildebrandt were each charged with six counts of felony child abuse.

Jodi Hildebrandt, Franke's business partner who was also charged with child abuse, is seen during a virtual court appearance (

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The arrest came after Franke’s 12-year-old son escaped to the home of one of Hildebrandt’s neighbours in Ivans, Utah for help. The young boy knocked on the door, asking for food and water.

But the neighbour noticed the child had duct tape on his ankles and wrists and called the police out of concern. The boy also appeared emaciated and malnourished with open wounds, according to a statement from local authorities. Another child was then discovered in the home and found to be malnourished as well.

Both children were taken to hospital for treatment. Police obtained a search warrant and “during the search of the home, evidence was located consistent with the markings found on the juvenile”, according to authorities.

Franke has come under fire previously for her treatment of her children in YouTube videos, with many people bringing up examples where she threatens to cut the head off one of her daughters’ toys, and tells another child they will go without dinner if they do not behave. There have also been clips shared of Franke telling one of her young daughters that the camera is there to stop her from being able to get too mad.

Franke's son was found with open wounds and duct tape on his ankles and wrists

There have been allegations of forms of physical abuse against Franke, including that one of her sons was tied to the ground with rope and had cayenne pepper and honey rubbed into his wounds. When it comes to physical abuse, Rachel says it can be easier to “resolve” as there are legal implications.

“When there is physical abuse, then unfortunately it becomes a little easier to resolve because they can go to prison,” she explained. “But how do we stop it before? How do we say that wasn’t an anomaly and it could have happened even if the family wasn’t on camera and all of that? And I don’t necessarily know.”

Pressure felt by families who rely on kids for income

Rachel went on to speak about the pressures potentially felt by families who have come to rely on their children’s appearances on social media as a source of income. In May 2020, family YouTuber couple Myka and James Stauffer, who had been documenting their journey of adopting a child from overseas, announced that they had placed their adopted son, Huxley, with a new family.

Myka already had three biological children when she and James decided to adopt Huxley from China (

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It sparked anger and outrage on social media, with many questioning the couple’s ethics. Their journey of international adoption began in the autumn of 2016, when they decided to adopt a sibling for their three biological children, Nakova, Jaka and Radley. The parents, from Ohio, found a little boy called Huxley from China through an international adoption agency.

His file indicated he had brain damage and a brain tumour, and Myka, being an oncology nurse, wasn’t deterred by this. The couple went out to China to meet Huxley and returned home where they discovered he had additional health issues not accurately noted in his file.

Myka and James adopted Huxley knowing he had additional needs, but soon found out he had more health conditions than on his file (

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The young boy had experienced a stroke in utero and was diagnosed with level 3 autism and sensory processing disorder. The couple adapted to his needs and regularly kept viewers updated on their journey and his progress.

However, in the late winter of 2019 and early spring of 2020, viewers began to notice Huxley had stopped appearing in videos and posts. One of Myka’s last posts with Huxley was made on February 16, 2020, where she talked about the challenges of his additional needs. Followers started to question what had happened and asked for updates on the young boy.

Myka remained mostly silent about her son’s absence, causing concern to grow among her audience. In May 2020, they broke their silence, saying Huxley was thriving and happy in his new home with a family that could better care for his unique needs.

Myka and James Stauffer announced their adopted son Huxley had gone to live with another family in May 2020 (

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A case was opened in the midst of all this as concerns were raised for Huxley’s welfare, but the local sheriff’s office in Ohio closed its case after meeting with Huxley and his prospective adoptive parents, having found no signs of abuse or legal issues with the adoption process.

“In the Myka Stauffer case, perhaps they wouldn’t have gone about the adoption the way that they did if it hadn’t been sort of seen as this lucrative thing,” said Rachel.

“Perhaps the pressure that Ruby Franke felt for her children to perform and the way she had to treat them wouldn’t have been the same if this wasn’t something that was bringing them money.

“But also, the truth of the matter is, I think, that true abusers are going to be abusers on camera or off camera. And those are the horrific stories that I think can catch the eye and maybe push for some of these reforms.”

People starting to 'wake up' to family vloggers

At its peak, Franke’s 8 Passengers YouTube channel amassed more than 2.5 million subscribers. But, Rachel says “people are starting to really wake up to what this is” when it comes to the nature of these family influencers.

“I think a lot of these family vlogger parents say ‘Oh the children enjoy it, we don’t put them on camera unless they want to be’, but the thing is that they’ve had a camera in their face since they were an infant, so it’s completely normalised that a kid wouldn’t know potentially to say ‘I don’t want this’, or ‘I do want this’,” Rachel explained. “And that’s one issue, and the other is using your children as your money makers.

Ruby Franke is being held without bond as the case continues through court (

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“In many families [they] are doing this full-time and have quit their regular jobs. The reason they’re making money is because people are watching their children. I see them almost as two different issues.

“I see one as like a child labour issue, which can be regulated in some way, and one as sort of a children’s rights, best interest, protective sort of issue, which I think is more complicated to regulate, actually.”

United Nations has children's right treaty - but US hasn't ratified

The United Nations (UN) has a specific convention called the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), and it’s the most complete statement of children’s rights ever produced and the most widely-ratified international human rights treaty in history. It consists of 54 articles that cover all aspects of a child’s life, setting out the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights that children everywhere are entitled to.

The UNCRC was adopted by the UN in 1989 and has been ratified by 196 countries. However, the US is one of the only countries in the world that has not ratified the treaty.

Ruby Franke ran the popular '8 Passengers' YouTube channel documenting her family's life (

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“The US hasn’t probably [ratified the treaty] in part because individual autonomy is a very important value in the United States,” speculated Rachel. She went on to say: “Thinking about it from a constitutional perspective, we give a lot of deference to parents to make decisions for their children. That’s what a lot of children’s law and law relating to children [is]. The decisions are that parents know best, parents get to make the decision for their children until the children can make them for themselves.

“We try and veer away from state intervention, but then we do also have this best interest language - I’m going to think about the best interests of the child and so what does that really mean?”

While the family and child vlogger niche is present across the globe, Rachel notes “the bulk of the really popular family and child influencers are within the US”.

But, she said: “I think it’s important to continue to note that this is interestingly a pretty US-based problem, unfortunately without a good US-based solution.”

The 'formula' to become a family influencer

And she has her fears for the future as social media continues to become a more dominant aspect of our everyday lives. Rachel explained: “I think one of my fears is a fear about social media in general, though it is intensified in this context, which is just that the idea of vlogging as a career is something that is a little bit disturbing to me, kids growing up desiring to be influencers and that being their core professional desire.

Disgraced YouTube mumfluencer Ruby Franke shockingly claimed her kid sexually abused sibling for years (

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“I think that feeds into, if you have a baby that makes it even easier because babies get a lot of hits. And people love pregnancy announcements, people love adoption announcements, people love medical drama and it’s really a violation of privacy. So that’s something that I really am concerned with is that this will just become normalised as a viable option.”

She added that there’s almost a “formula” now to become a popular family influencer as the genre has grown. She explained that video thumbnails on YouTube are “so formulaic, you know the editing, they look the same. There’s a formula to do this now and I think that’s what’s scary, is that it’s not just pull out the camera with the kids even. It’s this formula of ‘this is how you make a viral video with children’, so I think that’s really scary. It’s all laid out now.”

'The internet is forever'

Then there’s the very nature of being a vlogger, everything is being uploaded online with little to no control over who has access to these intimate videos and pictures of children’s lives shared by their parents.

“The other really scary thing is that these children are on the internet,” said Rachel. “These children are showing up on child pornography websites, they’re showing up on the Dark Web, people know where they live.

“They’re following these families, they’re stopping these kids in real life. These parasocial relationships are really scary because people, even innocently, really believe they know these families. They’re sending them presents, when they see them on the street or they see them at places [they’re] demanding things of these children, demanding hugs and for them to talk to them.

Franke was arrested after her 12-year-old son escaped business partner Jodi Hildebrandt's home and ran to a neighbour (

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“And the parents are feeding into it and I think that’s the other really scary part. The internet is forever. So if every family that’s currently on the internet doing this, if they were to stop tomorrow because they saw Ruby Franke, they saw what happened, and they were like’ you know what, we can’t do this anymore’ - all of that content is still accessible and everything from those moments is still accessible.

“It never goes away. You can never actually present that those things didn’t happen. And I don’t think there’s enough of an acknowledgement and a recognition that this is what is going on and I think that is very very scary.”

More needs to be done to protect children

Rachel said she hopes that as social media continues to become more of an integral aspect of society, there will be more discussion about legislation and protocols to protect children. One thing she hopes is that the UNCRC will be updated, as it was written at a time when the internet was “in its infancy” and “the idea that you could take a video and move it from a home cassette recorder to this amorphous internet thing and have it accessible didn’t exist”.

Another area she feels needs addressed is child labour laws, to have children on social media protected in similar aspects to child film and TV stars. She explained: “I think the child labour laws, while it’s only one part, the tighter the laws are, the more people will be dissuaded because the less money they can make off of this.”

Rachel Abrams, 3rd year law student at University of Chicago Law School (

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Rachel is also calling on social media platforms to do more. She said: “I think that YouTube and Instagram and Facebook all have the mechanisms now for censoring a lot of things, and there’s no reason they can’t sensor, have a trigger for censoring videos and content with children… I think they have the technology and with [advancements in] AI, I think that’s going to become easier and easier.”

But there are still questions that need to be asked. “Where does the line draw what can we share, what can’t we share?” she asked. “What can we make money off with kids and what can’t we make money off of with kids? And I think that’s really complicated and I think right now what I’d like to most see is just a conversation around this really start… I would like to see it being talked about more in places that can actually make a difference and are actually thinking about it that way.”