Molly-Mae, Bambi and the ‘sharenting’ grey zone

0:00Molly-Mae Hague:This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. The ultimate cookout starts with the ultimate ingredients. At Whole Foods Market, no antibiotics ever, burgers and kebabs are prepped and ready to throw on the grill. Fire up a juicy ribeye, grab creamy potato salad and savoury flatbreads from the prepared foods department and round it all out with 365 brand condiments, chips and dips at everyday low prices. Whole Foods Market. Make your summer sizzle.

0:59get your BBC podcasts.

1:06Hello and welcome to Fame Under Fire with me, Anushka Matandadauti. This week, Molly May has been getting some heat for how much of her daughter Bambi's life she is choosing to share in her latest Prime video series, Behind It All. Warning, there might be some strong language in this episode. I don't know yet. I'm saying that mostly for me and Sean, but Claire, do your best. We're going to have some clips in of that episode now. I don't want it! Wait, hang on, because look... What have you got to do with the sit-down? You don't have to do anything on the toilet. I've got to take the sunglasses and the hat now.

1:41They were your special treat if you used the toilet. I don't want it! It's bath time now, Dolly. Come on, sit down. Oh, she's doing a... She's just pooed in the bath. That's OK, don't worry, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. I don't want it! OK, it doesn't matter. A baby poo? Yeah, you did a poo in the bath. There's a full three-piece turd floating around in the bathtub. Now, Molly is not the first to include her child in content, and for sure she won't be the last, but people are questioning how Bambi can consent to this much of her life being out there, as she's only very, very little. I love Molly May, but I find her new series really uncomfortable to watch.

2:22And I feel like Bambi's dignity and privacy has been massively compromised in the name of entertainment. Bambi is going to be mortified Googling herself in the future. Yes, this is normal, but this is going to follow Bambi for all of her life. Discuss it with your friends, but don't publicise it on TV. And look, I think Bambi's become more of a feature of Molly's content. She does YouTube videos and she's got this documentary. She's kind of become a star in her own right. She had a little bit of a breakout moment where she was threatening to nibble on some of her classmates' premeditated biting incident.

2:57I'm going to bite someone. Oh, no, no. I'm going to bite... No. No way. No, we don't use our mouth to bite, do we? What do we use our mouth for? For food. Yeah, for food, for eating. We bite our food. Don't bite anyone. OK? We bite... Emily. No. No. But it's a different story. No. No, I don't know why I'm laughing at that. And look, I'm sorry, I found that clip hilarious, just the fact she was plotting to bite her two best friends. I mean, kids do weird stuff. The little people in my life are really fond of shoving stuff up their nose, like even though they've got teeny tiny nostrils and we have to take them to A &E each time.

3:41But what I'm wondering is if Bambi's such a key draw to the content and now she's getting her own viral moment, should she not be getting a portion of the profit seen as the videos are being monetised? And there are lots of questions about this. It's called sharenting. It's an online phenomena. Joining me today is Claire Besson, associate professor at Northumbria University Law School and our resident trial attorney, Sean Kent. Sean, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you're not actually sure who Molly May is. You correct me if you're wrong.

4:07Molly-Mae Hague:I just heard about Molly May for the first time hearing those clips just now. And OK. Okay, well, I don't think that I'm being, you know, hyperbolic to say that for a section of British society, the title of the People's Princess passed straight from Diana to Molly May. She really has such a huge dedicated fan base. She started on a show called Love Island and she had this romance with Tommy Fury, who's in Tyson Fury's family. And then she's just had this huge social media presence. And a lot of what she does is share personal content that now shows the real side of parenting. And I know a lot of mums in particular are saying it's really nice to see that Bambi's done a shit in the bath.

4:43This is not glamorous. This is the reality of what it's like. But that's who she is in the Internet space. Claire, this phenomena isn't going anyway, and she didn't originate it. But I'm just wondering, do we actually have any laws around sharenting, parenting content online? It's a really good question. And depending on what country you're in, the answer is going to be completely different. so in England we don't have any specific laws that govern sharenting we have laws on privacy we have laws on data protection but none of them are particularly well adapted to the sharenting context because obviously you're not going to use privacy laws if you're a child against your parents if you're a child how would you actually do that anyway you're two years old so that doesn't really work very well people have talked about maybe using the data protection regulation as a way for children to take down information that's put up about them.

5:37It certainly is something that can be used by children who have had their information shared on a commercial basis. But actually, for most children whose parents are putting their information up online, just because they want to share it with family, with friends, they're proud of their children, the data protection regulation doesn't work because there's an exemption that says if you're sharing information for household or personal reasons, the data protection regulation doesn't apply. Sean, is that similar in the US or is there more protection?

6:06Molly-Mae Hague:There are much more protections in the US, specifically monetizing, because what we try to do is try to make sure that a parent is not taking advantage of a child. Ours started out, we have what are called Coogan's Law. It started out with a child actor by the name of Jackie Coogan in the 30s. If you're not familiar, Jackie Coogan was in silent films with a guy named Charlie Chaplin. He was in this movie called The Kid. He made a bunch of money from there. For people who aren't familiar with that, he actually went further, became Festus in the Addams family. So if you've watched the Wednesday Addams show, he later became Festus, the bald guy.

6:42Molly-Mae Hague:Well, he gets 21 years old. When he becomes 21 years old, he goes to look for all the money that he made when he was a child. And shockingly, his money was gone. His father had died. His mother had remarried. Stepfather and his mother took all of his money. So he sued. So as a result, Hollywood put into play the Coogan's Law. What Coogan's Law said is if you are hiring a child actor, you must, people who are paying these child actors, put 15 % of whatever you pay them inside of a trust account. And that trust account goes to the child when they become 18. That's what it was. Well, then what ends up happening is we start getting all these sharing team laws and everyone's just like, well, this doesn't necessarily protect the child.

7:23Molly-Mae Hague:So what are we going to do? So states like Utah, Illinois, California started passing these new laws. And what the new laws said is, since we have a new class of influencers and we're trying to protect these children, how do we do it? What they decided was a simple formula, which is kind of weird. They said, look, mom, dad, if you're putting your kid in any of these videos and they're in at least 30 percent of the video, you must give the kid 65 percent of the money you make. Here's the best way to make it make sense. Anushka, if you have a child and all of a sudden you are a YouTube celebrity and some jeans company comes to you and says, we want you to make us a jeans commercial.

8:03Molly-Mae Hague:And Anushka says, great. And you're making this one minute commercial. And then all of a sudden you say, well, I'm going to put my daughter in it for 50 percent of the commercial. Well, they say we're going to pay you twenty thousand dollars. So you take the twenty thousand dollars. They said you put your daughter in half of the commercial. that's$10 ,000, you must give her 65 % of that$10 ,000, you must put$6 ,500 in a trust account. That's a very long-winded answer, but that's the protection that we have towards the children now. Man, that was a long-winded answer. I'm sorry. No, but quick maths.

8:33That's very impressive.

8:34Molly-Mae Hague:Yeah, that math did work, actually. Yes, that's literally how the math works. I'm doing this job for a reason, honey. But that's really interesting to hear that those rules have come about so quickly, because I said this isn't a new phenomena, but it's relatively new in the landscape of media that's been out there. Claire, you've seen the clips. I mean, you heard some of them there. You've seen the doc. Do you actually think that this uproar around Molly's doc is warranted? What struck me yesterday when I first got contact to talk about this was actually I was oblivious to this at all. But there was so many things online about what Molly may have done.

9:10And I thought, you know, there might have been a small proportion of people who'd watched the clip, but there's now a huge amount more people that are going to be watching it because of all the media for Rory afterwards commenting on Molly May. And I thought that in itself is really interesting because we might be saying, well, some people certainly we've heard this morning say we don't like what Molly May is doing, but actually they've almost exacerbated the harms to the child's dignity and privacy because it's become a much bigger issue. that was my initial thought when I sort of went into it in terms of the video itself I don't think I would feel comfortable if someone did something like that to me and I suppose that's one of the questions that parents maybe need to ask themselves is how would I feel if I was in that situation and I think it can be very difficult if you're a parent and obviously the situation that Molly May was in when her daughter was in the bath was one she was not expecting the camera was already rolling.

10:13So that was a very difficult situation for a how to deal with it. But I think for anyone who's sharing ting, it's a question of just thinking sensitively about how would I feel if I was in that situation? Not saying that there is any right or wrong approach that parents should take. And I think everyone is going to have a different view about what is appropriate, but just maybe thinking before information is shared about how would we feel. Sean, do you agree?

10:39Molly-Mae Hague:Absolutely. There's studies, I mean, God, there's studies replete on how children develop. And we always talk about the rules of seven, zero to seven, seven to 14, 14 to 21. Children develop in these different ages and different ranges. And I'm petrified that the things that you might be doing to your child that you think are funny for you and your friends from zero to seven, how they're going to negatively affect that child down the road, we just don't know. And so a parent might think it's cute now, but we don't know the scars that this child are going to develop. And look, Molly's come off and said herself, you know, she's going to be raised in this environment.

11:11We have this type of humour. She's probably going to find it pretty funny. We invited Molly May to respond to the criticisms and come on and talk to us. We've not heard back yet, but previously she told the Sun newspaper, she's just a child, as in she, Bambi, and I have to manage it carefully. When Bambi gets older, she's going to have a really special video diary. Not all of it's pretty, but it's just magical that I'm able to do that. asked how her daughter might react to what's being termed Pugate. She said, I think she'll love it. To be honest with you, like I said before, it's quite hard to navigate because she obviously didn't choose this life.

11:43But equally, I think we are so grateful to have the life that we do. And I think it's me and Tommy. Tommy's the dad, Bambi's dad, just navigating our way through it and figuring out how it feels right for Bambi. My question is, I'll come to you first, Sean, seeing as the laws are a little bit more robust in the U.S., could you make an argument that even though this is natural content, organic content that she's making at home, you know, she didn't plan this, that the child is actually employed by the parent because the content is being used and monetized?

12:12Molly-Mae Hague:Absolutely. And that's why we talked about Coogan's Law. And that's why we talked about the Child Protection Act in California, that we go out of our way to say this person's an employee and we haven't gone this far yet. And I probably know where your next question is going to go is what protections do we have with said employees. But yeah, their argument would be made for me that if you are monetizing, if you are putting them on a screen, if you are taking money for the content they're creating, they are your employee. And so for those reasons, are we following the same protocols and rules that we would have if they were working for another company?

12:44Molly-Mae Hague:You know, in the United States, we have very specific rules on how often a child can work. What can a child do? Do they have to do those same rules when they're working for their parent. So it's an interesting slippery slope, but this is the new social media generation. The laws are not, they have not created to keep up with the new times. They were written a long time ago. They were written before there was TikTok, Instagram, share, whatever all that stuff is. So it's very interesting. On which you are huge on those apps. And it's just crazy to me that you don't know how to use them. I don't even know how to work.

13:14Yeah, I mean, don't even get me started. But following on from that school of thought, if the child is being employed by the parent and mom says, oh, hold on, we've just got to do this video just before I put dinner on. And she does that three or four times that week. And the kid is like, I'm not allowed to eat until we've done the content. Is that a hostile work environment?

13:29Molly-Mae Hague:Not only is it possible, but what's even more interesting is, Anushka, if you wanted to file a suit against your employer today and say they have treated me hostile, you have a statute of limitations of two years, maybe three in some situations. When you're a child, you have two years until after the point you hit majority. So let's say this child at 18 years old realizes, You know, back when I was seven, my mom treated me in a hostile work environment. I now have until I'm maybe 20, maybe 21 to bring the lawsuit. Parents have to be careful. And look, I'm not saying that's what's going on in Molly May's house.

14:02Her daughter looks, well, very, very happy, especially when she's talking about biting her friends in all of the vlogs. But I'm assuming, Claire, that this isn't similar in the... The ultimate cookout starts with the ultimate ingredients. At Whole Foods Market, no antibiotics ever, burgers and kebabs are prepped and ready to throw on the grill. Fire up a juicy ribeye. Grab creamy potato salad and savory flatbreads from the prepared foods department and round it all out with 365 brand condiments, chips and dips at everyday low prices. Whole Foods Market, make your summer sizzle. How did a ballerina build one of the most controversial companies in finance?

14:44This week on Good Bad Billionaire, Luana Lopez Lara, the youngest self-made female billionaire on the planet. Her company, Calci, lets you trade on anything from elections to the weather to war. Supporters say it predicts the future. Critics say it could undermine democracy. So is she a visionary? Or has she turned the whole world into a casino? Good Bad Billionaire. Listen wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

15:11UK I know our friends across the pond are a little bit more litigious could you make those same arguments? I did look into this a few years ago and whether we could use for example our misuse of private information taught for a child to bring a claim against their parent there are significant issues with it in the UK apart from anything else practically do we want to be using those types of laws, setting up parents and children in that sort of litigious battle. It would be very unusual in the UK, I think, to see that. It has implications not just for the court process, but the whole family when you start talking about it being almost a battle of child's rights against the parents' rights.

15:54In terms of practicalities as well, there's real difficulties Because if you think about a lot of the information that parents like Molly May share, it's not just information about their children. It's information about their lives as parents. So where do you say this is about Molly May's life as a parent? Where is the dividing line to then say, well, that's not Molly May's life. That's her daughter's life that we're talking about. It's so embedded in that family situation, all of that information to be able to say, well, that's my information. that's your information is quite tricky, I think.

16:29You've then got the issue as well that we've got constantly changing norms in terms of sharing thing. 10, 15 years ago, it wasn't maybe normal for parents to share everything about their children online, but increasingly it is the norm. And the more the influencer parents are sharing information and images and videos of the children, the more it becomes normalised for ordinary parents as well. So I think by the time that children today become adults, it's really hard to know how the courts would deal with that. Would they say, actually, this is just a normal part of life? You don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy anymore.

17:07And that's very much what the test would be in this country. Do we have a reasonable expectation of privacy? Well, that's an interesting position. We could end up in a society where no family has that reasonable expectation of privacy because we've all become micro-influencers in our own home. It's an entirely possibility. And I think the problem is that until we start talking about that more, until the state starts explaining to people, these are the potential risks of you putting information online. Once you put that information out there, you have lost control over it. Parents maybe just think, well, I can see it's happening everywhere else.

17:42So that is normal. Why wouldn't I do it? There don't seem to be any downsides to it. So there's maybe a bigger argument to be or a debate to be had about, well, what would be the way that we would want it to go? What are the harms? What are the benefits? So that people can take an informed view about it, rather it being a case down the line of there being litigation. Claire, outside of the conversations about consent and personal prerogative on the behalf of the child, there are some other considerations. Now, AI identity theft? Yeah, that was something that I was talking about with students in the States actually recently.

18:15and they were really concerned that the information that is being put up online about them now is being used in all sorts of ways that certainly they and parents would never have imagined. So we obviously have our images that go online. There was some research done last year by Human Rights Watch where they found a huge number of images of children in Australia and Brazil that had been used to train AI. so this was something that parents when they put information online were completely oblivious of there's been a report more recently I think it was an internet watch commenting about the fact that voices on social media are now being cloned they're potentially being used in ways that again that parents wouldn't expect to pretend that it is someone calling when it really isn't and asking for money.

19:09So there are all sorts of ways that at the moment we are only just sort of scraping the surface with and starting to realise that actually that information out there about the way we look, the way we talk, the way we walk, our mannerisms could be used in all sorts of different ways. That's so interesting. Sean, when you look at this, what jumps out to you as possible dangers that maybe I wouldn't see straight away?

19:31Molly-Mae Hague:First of all, y 'all both got me freaking out about this AI stuff right now. I'm listening to both of you in my mouth. I was like, I don't like any part of this. But in listening to both of you talk just now, thinking for myself from a personal point in America, and I understand when we're talking about our privacy rights, now I'm sounding British, I'm saying privacy, our privacy rights. That's how we get you. No, privacy, privacy, privacy, privacy, privacy, privacy, privacy, right? Because here the question would be a consenting adult would know their specific privacy rights. And so the parent themselves would be like, I understand it.

20:09Molly-Mae Hague:To think that we would have to trust a six, seven, eight year old trial to also understand the same rights. It's just got my head thinking about what is going to happen down the road. What are going to be the far reaching ramifications? And I know we are a much more litigious society, America. And so I'm thinking of the potential lawsuits down the road and I can see a wave of lawsuits from influencers. And let's make it clear. These lawsuits have already been happening. If you look at some of the child actors who used to sue their parents for emancipation, because they would say, look, even though we're having to put 15 % inside of my Coogan account, you were mismanaging the other 85 % that was coming to you.

20:50Molly-Mae Hague:You were mismanaging my likeness. I think we're going to start seeing that a lot more. These children are saying, you are mismanaging my likeness and affecting my value down the road. And that's one of the issues that they have with some of these. The California law is you are affecting these children and collectively speaking for them. And you're not acting as a parent. You're acting as an agent. And are you really using the child's best interest? So all of these things are fascinating to me because I think there's going to be a wave of lawsuits that some people might start to profit off of. And so there might be a wave of lawsuits in the future that we might start to see.

21:26Molly-Mae Hague:Just saying. Would you want to put a 1-800 number behind you, Sean? Not that that's why he does it, folks. No, that's why we do it. Now, you bring up that this has been happening already. There is this Cam Barrett case in the U.S. She's part of the first generation of influencer kids who've grown up, and she's campaigning to have stricter laws on this. She says she was bullied at school for stuff her mom shared, like the date of her first period on Facebook. Well, don't forget, think about like any person who has ever had a child whose child has said, Mom, you're embarrassing me. Why would you do that?

21:56Molly-Mae Hague:And mom thinks something is funny and shares it with her friends. And the kid looks at it completely differently. And the mom's like, Oh, my God, I did not know the way that was affecting you. And if you start looking at it that way and you then see a child saying, you don't know what you did to my life. You don't know the way you affected me. You don't know the way that I was bullied. Those do turn into lawsuits. And that's what I'm saying. Potentially down the road, we might start seeing those things that, mom, you thought it was funny. You had me do this. You made money off of this, but you were destroying me.

22:29Molly-Mae Hague:Here are my therapy notes. Here are my friends. Here are the things. So, yeah, I could see those happening. And we're joking about it, but children do get affected differently. And sometimes parents forget that. We always think that these children are just mini adults, but what they are, there is a reason we have protection for vulnerable adults. There's a reason we have protections for children because they can't protect themselves. So, yeah, I can see a wave of lawsuits coming. And look, I don't want to act like I'm being like, you shouldn't do this and you can't show the kids or whatever, because I follow 101 influencers who I remember when they were pregnant.