Content Warning: Child Abuse

Abstract

This essay discusses how social network sites (SNSs) have become a platform for addressing and discussing social issues. TikTok in particular has become the main platform for this, attributed to cancel culture. Cancel culture refers to the act of withdrawing support from a public figure due to their social unacceptable behaviour. Cancel culture has particularly created discussions on subjects regarding child advocacy, especially in cases like the 8 Passengers YouTube channel. This essay explores the role of TikTok accompanied by cancel culture in raising awareness of child abuse, by giving voices to those who cannot have their own, ‘cancelling’ and de-platforming individuals who partake in the negative upbringing of children and creating productive discussions that otherwise would not be had. The example of the 8 Passengers showcases how these platforms facilitate advocacy, support and accountability, which all ultimately contributed to social change in addressing child abuse.

Introduction

In recent years, social network sites (SNSs) have become a platform for addressing and discussing social issues. One of the social issues that have been discussed recently is child abuse, both on and off social media. Among these SNSs TikTok has been a significant common ground for discourse and activism, some of this being through cancel culture. Cancel culture is something that is very prevalent in today’s society, specifically on the SNS TikTok. Cancel culture refers to when there is a substantial amount of support removed from a public figure, influencer or celebrity who has done or said something that is no longer socially acceptable (Picarella, 2024). In many cases, cancel culture can get out of hand and be unreasonable but often cancel culture can be a major benefit to society, creating social change that wouldn’t otherwise happen. One of these social changes is child advocacy by raising awareness for child abuse that can often occur on TikTok and other SNSs like YouTube. This has been done through advocating for children by giving voices to those who cannot have their own, ‘cancelling’ and de-platforming individuals who partake in the negative upbringing of children and creating productive discussions that otherwise would not be had.

 

What Occurs & Is Occurring

SNSs as a whole can raise awareness for a multitude of different things, one of them being the abuse of children. This unfortunately happens more commonly than we are led to think, and some of these people are on social media and SNSs like YouTube and TikTok, some even broadcasting their behaviours online. Child abuse by definition is “any act that causes physical or emotional harm to a child” (Health Direct, 2023, para. 1). A recent high-profile case of child abuse taking place online is the case of Utah family YouTube vloggers 8 Passengers. 8 Passengers was the name of Ruby and Kevin Franke’s now-banned YouTube channel in which they would post family vlogs and parenting advice with their six children whose ages range from 21 to as young as 10 to their 2.5 million subscribers (Bubalo, 2024).  For the sake of this conference paper, the children will be left unnamed for their anonymity and privacy. Ruby, the main perpetrator was often viewed as a ‘harsh’ parent with a strict parenting style until she joined a counselling service/cult named ConneXions, which quickly spiralled her strict parenting into child abuse (Bubalo, 2024). Without getting into horrific details, viewers of 8 passengers watched this shift occur and there were often comments on their YouTube videos talking about the unjust treatment of the children. Whilst the actual abuse never occurred on camera, viewers were aware of the extremely unfair punishments the children would often receive, an example of this being their eldest son having to sleep on a beanbag in the living room for 7 months after pulling a harmless prank on his younger brother, stripping him away from one of his fundamental human rights (Bubalo, 2024). The abuse came to an end in August 2023 when the mother Ruby and the leader of ConneXions Jodi Hildebrandt were arrested and charged with 4 counts of aggravated child abuse and are looking at facing 4 to 30 years of imprisonment (Wendling, 2024). This case is an example of many cases of child abuse that occur both on and offline, the case of the 8 Passengers in particular though has brought awareness to the topic of child abuse and the importance of child advocacy. This in particular has been done mostly through cancel culture. Before the arrests were ever made there was an array of calls made to the Child Protective Services (CPS) regarding the safety of the children purely based on what was shown on the YouTube channel (Bubalo, 2024). Unfortunately, nothing was done about these calls until the main major incident of child abuse happened in August of 2023 which resulted in the arrests (Bubalo, 2024). It is unfortunate to say that the case of the 8 Passengers is not the only one, but it is currently the most recently discussed incident, and now that cancel culture is such a prevalent part of today’s society, abusers are getting held accountable for their actions online and offline.

 

Giving Voices to Victims

Social media and SNSs as a whole are heavily responsible for giving anyone who wants one, a platform. In this case, giving a platform for victims to share their stories, educate other people and raise overall awareness on this important subject matter. TikTok specifically is an amazing SNS for allowing people to have their own voice as it is easy to create a community on a global scale that listens and supports what they have to say (Ng, 2020). This community is partially attributed to cancel culture, as it helps start the discussion which makes the SNS more welcoming and comfortable for the person to open up and share their story (Picarella, 2024). TikTok stands out as one of the best SNSs for giving people who need it, a voice and advocating for them as well. This is because TikTok is a user-friendly application that is easy to use, efficient and accessible, making the already large global reach, even larger (Ezeilo et al., 2023). This paired with TikTok’s unique algorithm ensures that victims’ videos will be shared with the appropriate people, letting them get the support they deserve and need (Ezeilo et al., 2023). As TikTok is a short-form video-sharing platform it creates the opportunity for victims or anyone to share their stories in a concise but effective way. The user-friendliness makes it quick and easy to create content to share on TikTok, which differs from other SNSs like YouTube which are generally a bigger production (Lee & Abidin, 2023). This in hand makes it easier for survivors to speak about and share their experiences. TikTok being fast paced also allows and encourages viewers to interact and engage with a lot of content quickly, making it imminent that important messages reach a wide global audience as quickly as possible (Ezeilo et al., 2023). TikTok also has an incredibly diverse user base and global reach, with a large variety of users all with different expertise, hobbies, and interests, helping TikTok to create a sense of diverse community (Lee & Abidin, 2023). TikTok allows people to connect with a variety of other who have similar experiences, allowing them to support each other and create a sense of empowerment (Lee & Abidin, 2023). Something, that is incredibly important for a victim. Additionally, TikTok has translation features and captions ensuring that the content is easy to understand by users despite any language barriers or hearing impairments (Simpson et al, 2023). In the case of the 8 Passengers, none of the children have come forward and specifically discussed it on any platforms but they have had the community and support handed to them regardless, in turn, helping them feel seen and cared for.

 

‘Cancelling’ and De-Platforming Abusers

A crucial part of child abuse and the discussions surrounding it is holding the abuser accountable. In the realm of SNSs, this is often done through cancel culture by ‘cancelling’ or de-platforming the abusers if they have any sort of an online presence (Picarella, 2024). SNS users will ‘cancel’ any individual who does or says anything not socially acceptable (Picarella, 2024). This can vary from saying a racist slur to murdering someone, some are just more common than others. Whilst the case of the 8 Passengers is a bit more of a rarer one, it is not unseen or unheard of. TikTok’s users proceed to ‘cancel’ the individual(s) associated with the event in order to create a safer digital environment and to hold the individual(s) accountable (Lee & Abidin, 2024). While some people can come back from a cancellation via public apologies, sometimes you cannot come back from a cancellation. This is often the case with more severe incidents that cannot be boiled down to an ‘accident’ or being ignorant (Picarella, 2024). Even though Ruby Franke from 8 Passengers is getting held accountable in real life with law enforcement for the abuse of her children, she is most definitely getting held accountable online as well, and there will be no return from it. Even if Ruby gets her maximum sentence she will remain publicly and globally cancelled for life, well passed her release. That is one of the many benefits of the Internet and SNSs is its permanence (Ng, 2020). No matter how many people forget about Ruby and her abuse, the internet never will. The responses within cancel culture to abuse and other behaviours show the collective commitment within a community to prioritise the safety of users and ‘cancelling’ the individuals associated with the behaviours (Picarella, 2024). It clearly sends the message that such behaviour is not and will not be tolerated within the online space. With that being said, cancel culture as a whole holds people accountable for their actions, no matter how big or small the incident is and this benefits society by changing how people are held accountable and on what scale (Picarella, 2024).

 

Creating Productive Discussions

Both TikTok and cancel culture aids the development of productive discussions on important issues like child abuse (Ng, 2020). Through TikTok’s platform, an environment is created where users can share perspectives and raise awareness on the issue at hand (Lee & Abidin, 2023). These users can also include qualified professionals who share a professional perspective on the topic that is being discussed (Ng, 2020). TikTok’s format encourages concise creativity and that helps create meaningful and productive conversations on a multitude of different subject matter, some more serious than others (Ng, 2020). Because of this TikTok users create videos that are thought-provoking and lead to discussions and debates in the comments, even using the popular ‘stitch’ function and ‘reply with video’ to a comment function (Lee & Abidin, 2023). These help not only create discussions but also capture the attention of others and get them to reflect on issues, like child abuse. These discussions vary from sharing personal stories, educational content and advocacy messages, to creating productive conversations that allow people to feel safe, supported and educated (Lee & Abidin, 2023). In the case of the 8 Passengers, there were multiple productive discussions surrounding child abuse and its components. Strangers were helping other strangers by educating and supporting one another within a community (Ng, 2020). Cancel culture helps to further conversations and get them to occur more often as the multitude of people thinking/talking about the subject grows when a case becomes more relevant (Ng, 2020). This is clearly seen in the case of 8 Passengers as when it was currently taking place there was a surplus of conversations regarding child abuse. These conversations provided the children of 8 Passengers with a widespread community full of support and advocacy on their behalf, that otherwise wouldn’t have been as large-scale. In turn, TikTok and cancel culture create the environment for productive discussions to take place, particularly on severe subjects like child abuse and raise awareness by educating others and spreading love and support to any victims in need of it (Ng, 2020). TikTok’s global reach with its unique algorithm allows support and education to an extraordinary amount of people, making child advocacy the norm, how it should be.

 

Conclusion

Considering all of this, TikTok and cancel culture have both had a significant role in giving a voice to children who cannot have their own, ‘cancelling’ and de-platforming individuals who partake in the negative upbringing of children and creating productive discussions. The communities that form in the process of doing this become a place for victims to find support, share their stories and raise awareness. Through TikTok individuals globally are able to hold perpetrators accountable and demand justice for victims. The case of the 8 Passengers is an example of how these platforms have created meaningful discussions and advocacy for the children through the power of cancel culture, resulting in increased awareness of child abuse and support for the children. As a society, we have harnessed the power of technology and created a social change by holding abusers and people alike accountable for their actions whilst giving a community of support to victims and survivors.

 

References

Bubalo, M. (2024, February 21). Who is Ruby Franke, the parenting influencer jailed for Child abuse?. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66719859

Ezeilo, C. O., Leon, N., Jajodia, A., & Han, H.-R. (2023). Use of social media for health advocacy for Digital Communities: Descriptive Study. JMIR Formative Research, 7. https://doi.org/10.2196/51752

Healthdirect Australia. (2023). Child abuse. https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/child-abuse

Lee, J., & Abidin, C. (2023). Introduction to the special issue of “Tiktok and social movements.” Social Media + Society, 9(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051231157452

Ng, E. (2020). No grand pronouncements here…: Reflections on cancel culture and Digital Media Participation. Television & New Media, 21(6), 621–627. https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476420918828

Picarella, L. (2024). Intersections in the Digital Society: Cancel Culture, Fake News, and Contemporary Public Discourse. Frontiers in Sociology, 9. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2024.1376049

Simpson, E., Dalal, S., & Semaan, B. (2023). “hey, can you add captions?”: The critical infrastructuring practices of neurodiverse people on Tiktok. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 7, 1–27. https://doi.org/10.1145/3579490

Wendling, M. (2024, February 21). Ruby Franke: Parenting advice youtuber given maximum sentence for child abuse. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68353302