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Sponsor seeks trust and deletion rights for child influencers; platforms urge narrow fixes
Summary
House Bill 21 would require creators who monetize content featuring minors to place a proportionate share of earnings into trusts and permit former child subjects to request deletion; tech trade groups warned the bill as drafted could force platforms to adjudicate private disputes and urged amendments.
Delegate Nick Allen told the committee that House Bill 21, the Child Influencers Protection Act, aims to protect minors who appear in monetized online content by requiring creators who earn money from that content to place a percentage of earnings into trusts for the children and to allow those children, once adults, to request content removal.
Allen cited the historical Coogan Act for child actors as precedent and explained the bill’s two main components: (1) a compensation mechanism tied to the share of content in which a child appears and (2) an adult’s right to request deletion of content in which they appeared as a minor. He described thresholds in the draft tied to monetization (e.g., at least $0.10 per view) and to the percentage of content duration.
Industry witnesses opposed the bill as drafted. Megan Stokes of the Computer and Communications Industry Association said requiring platforms to permanently delete content at the request of a third party would deputize platforms to resolve family and legal disputes and could lead to over‑removal. Margaret Durkin of TechNet raised practical questions about identity verification, multiple minors in a frame, platform shutdowns and interactions with contracts, copyright and newsworthiness. Both witnesses suggested alternatives such as putting deletion responsibility on the content creator/owner and looking to models in Illinois and other states for trust and compensation design.
The sponsor and witnesses acknowledged similar bills in several states and signaled willingness to work on amendments and technical fixes. The committee concluded the hearing without a vote.
