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Kidfluencers' Rampant YouTube Marketing Creates Minefield for Google

Efforts to tackle inappropriate children’s content had unintended effect, pushing creators into legal gray zones.

Bloomberg business news
Why Kidfluencers' YouTube Marketing Could Be a Minefield for Google

On Feb. 13, JoJo Siwa posted a YouTube video from a Target store, detailing her plan to buy “every single item of JoJo merch” inside. She starts with clothes, piling her own trademarked shirts and dresses into a cart. “I literally got one of everything I could find!” Siwa says to the camera. “Now, let's go see if they’ve got toys.”

Siwa encapsulates many of the things that made YouTube the world’s most-watched video site. She dances, sings and screams excitedly into the camera, drawing millions of viewers, mostly young girls. The 15-year-old kidfluencer also highlights how YouTube’s success with children has created an ethical and perhaps even legal minefield for its owner, Alphabet Inc.’s Google.