Family vlogging in recent years has been a way for parents to share the lives of their kids on the internet and oftentimes make some money as well. Tasty Edits, a video editing service, describes YouTube family channels as a “fantastic and unique way of deep-diving into the adventure of raising children.”
Recently, big-time family YouTuber Ruby Franke has drawn attention to how this "deep-diving" can be dangerous. Franke, the owner of the YouTube channel 8 Passengers with over 2.3 million subscribers, was charged with six counts of aggravated child abuse. The question of whether family vlogging is ever ethical has been debated since her arrest on Aug. 30.
For sometimes five days a week over eight years, Franke posted videos of her six children. Viewers were extremely invested in the lives of their families. These popular videos put vulnerable moments in her children's lives on display in vulnerable moments and were constantly put under the pressure of the vlog camera.
Even though the channel has since been deleted, clips of the children from the channel still remain available on YouTube from other channels. Conspiracy theorists have speculated on when the child abuse began and have pulled several clips from her YouTube channel and other social media platforms as evidence.
Ruby Franke is not the first of her kind: the family YouTube channels KKandBabyJ, The Bee family and the ACE family have all been involved in some form of legal trouble throughout their YouTube careers.
The children of these channels rarely come out unscathed. Franke's daughter, Shari Franke, has been somewhat vocal about the situation, posting on her Instagram story a photo of a police car outside of their home. Shari Franke said that she had been trying to get the police and child protective services involved for years.
Gabriela Bee, daughter of the owners of The Bee Family channel, was a victim of online trolls in 2021. Images of her from a YouTube video were edited and shared across numerous social media platforms.
These are just two instances of an ever-present issue with very little means of regulation. Yet no one is stepping up — not legislators and certainly not YouTube.
Family vlogging doesn’t account for kids not understanding or consenting to the permanency of the internet. Even when videos are removed, the case of Ruby Franke’s children and many others is but a testament to just how much of an impact the internet can have on a child’s life. Channels that show deeply personal areas of parenting can help other parents relate to their struggles but often don't acknowledge the vulnerability of the situation.
