California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed two bills to protect the earnings of child influencers and content creators into law Thursday.
Newsom signed SB 764, a bill that requires content creators that feature children in at least 30% of their content to set aside a proportionate percentage of their earnings in trusts for the minors.
State Sen. Steve Padilla originally introduced SB 764 in December after the passage of a similar bill to protect child influencers' earnings in Illinois in August 2023.
Newsom also signed AB 1880, introduced by Assemblymember Juan Alanis, which expands the Coogan Law to include minors featured in monetized online content. The Coogan Law, passed in 1939, protects child entertainers by requiring parents to put 15% of a minor's earnings into a trust.
More states have introduced legislation in hope of protecting child content creators.
"In old Hollywood, child actors were exploited," Newsom said in a news release Thursday. "In 2024, it’s now child influencers. Today, that modern exploitation ends through two new laws to protect young influencers on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and other social media platforms.”
He was accompanied by pop star and former Disney Channel actor Demi Lovato, who recently released a documentary about the impact fame can have on a child entertainer's well-being.
In part of the documentary, titled "Child Star," Lovato raises questions and interviews experts about the lack of protections for child influencers, especially compared with child actors in traditional entertainment.
Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the national executive director of SAG-AFTRA, the union representing more than 150,000 film and television performers, praised Newsom for enacting the expansion of protections.
"Regardless of medium or platform, all child performers must be strongly protected," Crabtree-Ireland said.
