In wake of Ruby Franke abuse case, Utah adds protections for children of social media influencers
A new Utah law has established protections for the children of online content creators, giving kids a path to remove media they are featured in from the internet and requiring parents to set aside money for kids used in online content.
The law follows the child abuse conviction of Ruby Franke, a mother of six who dispensed parenting advice to millions on YouTube before her arrest on child abuse charges in 2023. Gov. Spencer Cox signed the law on Tuesday under the encouragement of Franke's now ex-husband, Kevin Franke.
Kevin Franke told lawmakers in February that he wished he never let his ex-wife post their children online and use the family's home life for profit.
"Children cannot give informed consent to be filmed on social media, period," he said. "Vlogging my family, putting my children into public social media, was wrong, and I regret it every day."
The Frankes launched the now-defunct "8 Passengers" channel on YouTube in 2015 and began chronicling daily life as a seemingly tight-knit Mormon family in Springville, Utah. With its large nuclear families and religious lifestyles, the state is a hotbed for the lucrative family blogging industry. The reality show "The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives" brought widespread attention to a group of Utah-based Mormon moms and TikTok creators known as "MomTok" who create videos about their families and faith.
The content-creation industry is largely unregulated, but several states have added certain safeguards in recent years. Illinois, California and Minnesota have enacted laws protecting the earnings of young creators, and Minnesota's law includes a similar provision to Utah's that allows content featuring minors to be taken down.
Son's escape from home leads to investigation
The Franke children were featured prominently in videos posted up to five times a week to an audience of 2.5 million in 2010. Two years later, Ruby Franke stopped posting to the family channel and began creating parenting content with therapist Jodi Hildebrandt, who encouraged her to cut contact with Kevin Franke and move her two youngest children into Hildebrandt's southern Utah home.
The women were arrested on child abuse charges after Ruby Franke's emaciated 12-year-old son Russell escaped through a window and knocked on a neighbor's door. The neighbors noticed his ankles wrapped in bloody duct tape and called 911. Officers then found 9-year-old Eve, the youngest Franke child, sitting cross-legged in a dark closet in Hildebrandt's house with her hair buzzed off. Police said it took them hours to coax the child out of the closet.
The women were each sentenced to up to 30 years in prison.
Washington County Attorney Eric Clarke said that the investigation found that religious extremism motivated the abuse .
"The women appeared to fully believe that the abuse they inflicted was necessary to teach the children how to properly repent for imagined 'sins' and to cast the evil spirits out of their bodies," Clarke said.
Crime scene photos, body camera videos and interrogation tapes were released about a month after the women were sentenced.
In handwritten journal entries, Ruby Franke insists repeatedly that her son is possessed by the devil and describes months of daily abuse that included starving her children and forcing them to work for hours in the summer heat without protection. She also described shaving her daughter's head as a punishment.
The boy told investigators that Hildebrandt had used rope to bind his limbs to weights on the ground and dressed his wounds with cayenne pepper and honey, according to the police report.
Hoping to strike "content gold"
In a memoir published after her mother's arrest, Shari, the eldest child, described how Ruby Franke's obsession with "striking content gold" and chasing views led her to view her children as employees who needed to be disciplined, rather than children who needed to be loved. Shari wrote that her mother directed the children "like a Hollywood producer" and subjected them to constant video surveillance. She has called herself a "victim of family vlogging" and alluded in her book to early signs of abuse from her mother, including being slapped for disobedience when the now 22-year-old was 6.
Under the Utah law, online creators who make more than $150,000 a year from content featuring children will be required to set aside 15% of those earnings into a trust fund that the kids can access when they turn 18. Parents of child actors appearing in TV or film projects will also be required to place a portion of their earnings in a trust.
As the Utah Legislature was considering the measure, a new Hulu documentary titled "Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke" reignited interest in the case.
Franke's family has disavowed her actions. Sisters Julie Griffiths Deru and Bonnie Hoellein, both YouTubers as well, shared videos describing Franke's separation from the family and saying they knew nothing about the abuse. Franke's parents Chad and Jennifer Griffiths said in a statement to the court during Franke's trial that they had barely spoken to her in three years, and said that in those "brief communications," their daughter "accused us of either things that never happen or she grossly exaggerated the events that did."
"She was delusional," they said, according to CBS affiliate KUTV. "She was so deeply brainwashed we could not recognize her."
At a hearing last month, Kevin Franke read statements in support of the bill written by two of his daughters, ages 16 and 11. He filed for divorce shortly after his wife's arrest and petitioned to regain custody of his children from the state. His lawyer, Randy Kester, did not respond to email and phone messages over the past week seeking to confirm whether Kevin Franke had regained custody in the sealed case.
Eve Franke, the youngest child who police found emaciated with her head shaved, wrote in a statement to lawmakers that they had power to protect other kids from exploitation.
"I'm not saying YouTube is a bad thing. Sometimes it brings us together," she wrote. "But kids deserve to be loved, not used by the ones that are supposed to love them the most."
