Child Monetization
How weaknesses in Meta’s monetization systems and governance may expose children to harm
Published: 30 September 2026
WHAT TO FIX identified widespread inconsistencies in Meta’s enforcement of its monetization rules restricting the use of monetization products by individuals under 18 and accounts primarily posting content focused on children. In particular, the organization documented apparent access to monetization by:
Accounts designed to attract under-13 audiences
Accounts revolving around children, including babies, toddlers and child-influencers
Accounts impersonating or otherwise posting child content without authorization.
Accounts seemingly managed by teenagers.
WHAT TO FIX’s findings suggest that these enforcement failures are not isolated cases, but the foreseeable outcome of weaknesses in the design and operation of Meta’s monetization systems and governance —including content reviews, eligibility screenings, onboarding, identity and rights verifications and payouts.
Accounts designed to attract under-13 audiences Accounts revolving around children, including babies, toddlers and child-influencers Accounts impersonating or otherwise posting child content without authorization. Accounts seemingly managed by teenagers.WHAT TO FIX’s findings suggest that these enforcement failures are not isolated cases, but the foreseeable outcome of weaknesses in the design and operation of Meta’s monetization systems and governance —including content reviews, eligibility screenings, onboarding, identity and rights verifications and payouts.
We sought comments from Meta on our findings prior to publication, as we had done for previous research on sanctioned entities, police and military, politicians and political parties. Meta’s spokesperson provided the following statement:
We do not allow teens under 18 to use Meta's monetization features. We also do not allow accounts that primarily post content of children to monetize, for example by offering subscriptions or receiving gifts. To enforce these rules, we conduct age-checks and use a variety of signals to detect users under-18 and accounts that primarily post content of children. When an account or content violates our policies, we take appropriate action, including removing access to monetization features.” INTRODUCTION
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Meta offers a range of monetization products enabling eligible users to generate revenue through their use of its platforms (see available creator monetization products for Facebook and Instagram).
Access to monetization products is subject to ongoing compliance with Meta’s monetization terms and policies as well as specific products’ eligibility requirements.
Under-18
Across both Facebook and Instagram, Meta’s eligibility rules are clear: individuals under 18 are not eligible to use Meta’s monetization products.
This age requirement appears to apply across Meta’s different monetization models — from its creator monetization and bonus programs to its audience-support and brand-support products.
The rollout of creator monetization products, designed to enable users to generate revenue from their use of social media platforms, can create financial incentives for the commercialization of children’s attention, images, identities and labor, and expose children to harm.
Content focused on children
In the help center pages for several of its monetization products, Meta further specifies that accounts that “primarily post content focused on children” are not eligible to monetize.
This latter restriction is a bit more ambiguous, as “Content focused on children” might refer to both content featuring children as subjects as well as content targeting children as audiences.
While more clarity on Meta’s stated restrictions would be helpful, the very existence of these rules demonstrates that Meta sees age and child-focused content as a compliance matter of relevance to its monetization products’ eligibility. It also points to an acknowledgement by the company that monetization involving children—whether as creators, subjects, or audiences—can create child-safety risks, along with legal and business risks.
Accounts seemingly violating Meta’s monetization rules appear to continue to be able to access Meta monetization products
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Written policies are not the same as effective enforcement. To assess Meta’s enforcement of its monetization rules regarding children, we drew on our Meta Monetization Archive that consolidates Meta’s lists of Facebook and Instagram partner-publishers dating back to 2019, as well as publicly observable indicators of access to audience-support monetization products, such as ‘Stars’, ‘Gifts’, or ‘Subscriptions’.
Our review across both platforms and sets of indicators surfaced numerous accounts targeting, featuring, or apparently managed by children that appeared to be able to access Meta’s monetization products.
Accounts designed to attract and engage children under 13
Meta claims that children under 13 are not permitted to use Facebook and Instagram.
And yet, our research identified multiple accounts seemingly designed to attract and retain under-13 audiences that appeared to have access to Meta monetization products.
Searches for keywords such as “cartoons” or “toys” in our Meta Monetization Archive, for example, returned several thousand Facebook accounts that appeared on Meta’s partner-publisher lists in connection with one or more revenue-sharing programs.
Approximately 70% of the “cartoon” results and 88% of the “toys” results were still listed as registered for the Facebook Content Monetization program as of August 2026. The program, which formally replaced Meta’s previous In-Stream-Ads and Ads-on-Reels programs in September 2025, has been described as invite-only from its inception.
While not every account surfaced through the above searches was targeted at children, an illustrative review of the results identified numerous accounts that explicitly described themselves — in their bios or content — as providing entertainment for children. In some cases, the accounts even specified their target age group.
A broader review of child-related accounts across Facebook and Instagram further identified accounts displaying public signs of access to ‘Gifts’ and ‘Subscriptions’ products, further demonstrating Meta’s ongoing provision of monetization products to accounts explicitly directed at children.
While our findings do not imply that every viewer of these accounts is necessarily under 13, or that children necessarily use their own accounts to access the content, they point to a critical tension in Meta’s approach to child safety: if Meta seeks to prevent children under 13 from using its services, why would it be supporting accounts explicitly designed to attract and retain under-13 audiences to generate revenue?
Accounts primarily featuring children, including babies and toddlers
Our research also identified numerous accounts primarily posting content featuring children that displayed signs of access to Meta monetization products.
Searches for the keywords ‘baby’ and ‘kid’ in our Meta Monetization Archive, for example, returned tens of thousands of accounts that appeared on Meta’s partner-publisher lists in connection with one or more revenue-sharing programs. Nearly 90% of these accounts were still listed as registered for Facebook’s invite-only Content Monetization program as of August 2026.
Not all of the accounts surfaced through these searches were necessarily built around children. Some depicted adults, while others focused on cartoon or AI-generated characters.
An illustrative review of the accounts, however, revealed that many relied primarily on photos and videos of real children, with some explicitly designed around a given child or group of children and their image and personality. In some cases, the featured children were babies or toddlers.
Our findings do not imply that every account featuring a child and displaying monetization access is necessarily exploitative or engaged in illegal activities.
The fact that accounts that are primarily designed around children can register for monetization, however, raises concerns that monetization could financially incentivize the commodification of children's images, lives, identities and labor, and expose children to exploitation, privacy, safety and well-being risks.
- Child-influencer accounts
To complement our quantitative review, we also looked at the monetization status of a dozen child-influencer accounts from across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and various EU countries (France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands).
Our assumption was that Meta may be more effective at enforcing its monetization rules against large accounts associated with children whose age could easily be cross-referenced using publicly available information.
All of the accounts we reviewed displayed signs of having successfully accessed at least some of Meta’s monetization products, at one point or another.
Several of the children were under 13. In a number of cases, a parent was identified as managing the account.
The fact that the accounts may be managed by adults, however, does not eliminate the child-safety risks. If anything, scholars have argued that access to monetization products may incentivize adults to publicly feature children in pursuit of engagement and financial rewards.
READ MORE
- Divon, T., Annabell, T. & Giants, C. (2026) Children as concealed commodities: Ethnographic nuances and legal implications of kidfluencers’ monetisation on TikTok, New Media & Society 28(3), p. 1190-1218
- Clark, D. & Jno-Charles, A. (2025) The Child Labor in Social Media: Kidfluencers, Ethics of Care, and Exploitation, Journal of Business Ethics 201, p.35-62
While we did not specifically investigate concerns of sexual exploitation, prior reporting by the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal has raised concerns over parent-managed child-influencer and child-model accounts being subject to inappropriate attention.
READ MORE
- Valentino-DeVries, J. and Keller, M. (2024) A Marketplace of Girl Influencers Managed by Moms and Stalked by Men, The New York Times
- Horwitz, J. and Blunt, K. (2024) Meta Staff Found Instagram Tool Enabled Child Exploitation. The Company Pressed Ahead Anyway, The Wall Street Journal
- Accounts impersonating children
While researching child-influencer accounts, we also came across another set of concerning accounts: impersonator accounts.
We used the keyword search function of our Meta Monetization Archive to review the monetization history of each of the child-influencers under review. In several cases, the search returned monetized or previously monetized accounts that purported to represent the child and posted content featuring them, while lacking an apparent connection to the child.
Our search for Russian-American child-influencer ‘Like Nastya’, for example, returned 31 accounts, only 1 of which appears formally claimed by her parents.
While we were not in a position to independently confirm whether the other 30 accounts had obtained licensing arrangements with Nastya’s parents, we noted that several of the accounts were no longer accessible and several of those that remained appeared to be managed from countries with no apparent connection to the child and her family.
Our findings, in this case, raise a dual concern: not only may Meta have onboarded, and potentially paid, accounts that could be impersonating a child, but Meta’s monetization may also have been part of the incentive behind the initial appropriation of the child’s image and identity.
The risks stemming from impersonation can be especially severe for children. Not only can impersonation affect a child’s sense of self, and generate anxiety, but it can also have a long-term impact on their privacy, by restricting their ability to exercise their right of control over their image.
- Accounts aggregating children’s images and videos
Beyond child-influencers, whose public presence is usually encouraged and facilitated by parents, our research also ran into aggregator accounts that appeared to be monetizing photos and videos of children that may not otherwise have had a formal public presence.
The Instagram account ‘baby_lover_ind’ offers a particularly interesting example. It boasts 1.3 million followers and appears to have been built on the back of a continuous stream of baby videos. The account does not disclose how the videos were sourced or whether permission was sought from the children’s guardian. The phrase “DM for credits/removal” in its bio, however, raises credible concerns that the rights holders may not have been so much as contacted.
Despite the obvious risk to children’s privacy, the account displays a ‘Subscribe’ button, which indicates its ongoing use of Instagram’s ‘Subscription’ product and ability to solicit payments. It’s unclear, in the absence of further transparency from Instagram, whether the account may also be benefiting from other monetization products, including Instagram’s bonus programs.
Accounts managed by teenagers
Finally, our research surfaced credible evidence that teenagers may also be able to access monetization products, as creators, in violation of Meta’s stated restrictions.
- Standard Accounts
According to Ofcom-sponsored research, teenagers routinely lie about their date of birth to bypass platforms’ age restrictions. Such a strategy could offer a pathway for teenagers to access monetization products on accounts that they themselves manage.
While we were not able to independently determine the age of the individuals managing the accounts identified as part of this research, prior work by investigators from the State of New Mexico appears to confirm that teenagers may be able to register for monetization products using standard accounts.
As part of the State of New Mexico’s recent case against Meta, investigators documented the case of “Issa Bee”, a fictional 13-year-old from Albuquerque, for whom they had set up a standard Facebook account by lying about her age. As documented in the case’s exhibits, the account was eventually prompted by Meta to set up the Facebook Stars monetization product, despite the investigators posting content that “made abundantly clear that she is 13-years old”.
- Teen Accounts
Besides standard accounts, our research also uncovered that Meta's Teen Accounts –which have been widely advertised by Meta as one of its flagship child safety solutions— can be set to professional mode (‘pro mode’).
In order to turn on ‘pro mode’ and unlock ‘professional tools’, teens must adjust their account’s privacy settings to ‘public’, disabling one of the Teen Account central privacy protections.
According to the help center pages dedicated to Teen Accounts for creators on Facebook and Instagram, teens aged 16-17 can independently set their accounts to ‘pro mode’, while teens aged 13-15 require the involvement of an adult registered on the platform as their guardian.
We were unable to independently verify whether Teen Accounts using ‘pro-mode’ can unlock monetization products, but Meta’s product communications appear to suggest that this is a possibility.
The Instagram help center page dedicated to ‘Teen Accounts for Creators’ explicitly references ‘products and/or features like monetization, Instagram branded content, crossposting and shopping’, as features that may be accessed by teens using Teen Accounts set to ‘public’.
Unlike Instagram, the Facebook help center page for ‘Facebook Teen Accounts for creators with pro mode’ does not include any information about monetization products.
When we sought clarification from Meta’s AI support assistant, its response suggested that “teen creators can monetize on Facebook using professional mode” but that “monetization is typically handled by having a parent or legal guardian set up the payout account”.
While we do not regard Meta’s AI Assistant’s answers as formal Meta policy, this answer appears consistent with the information provided on the Instagram help center page, and suggests that Meta may be enabling access to monetization by individuals under 18 so long as it is able to process payments to an adult.
Recurring enforcement failures appear linked to weaknesses in the design and operation of Meta’s monetization systems
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As our research suggests, violations of Meta’s monetization rules appear to be a regular occurrence across all seemingly restricted children categories: creators, subjects and audiences.
This is particularly concerning as Meta claims to subject each of its partner-publishers to thorough business partner qualification procedures complemented by ongoing reviews.
Our findings call into question the thoroughness of these reviews and point to specific weaknesses in the design and operation of Meta’s monetization systems.
Ineffective Child-focused Detection
Throughout our research, we found repeated examples of accounts predominantly featuring children (including babies and toddlers) that displayed indicators of monetization. The fact that these accounts continued to display monetization indicators—and that explicitly child-focused content appeared eligible for monetization—raises questions about the effectiveness of Meta’s detection and enforcement systems.
In the below examples, the ‘Send a gift’ button, which is associated with access to the Facebook Stars product, can be observed as an overlay on the photo.
For the purpose of this study, we treated the presence of the “Send a gift” button, which can only be observed on mobile, as an indicator that the content was confirmed by Meta as eligible for monetization. It does not, however, establish that gifts were received, earnings accrued, or payouts issued.
Meta’s apparent inability to detect and prevent the monetization of content visibly focused on children, including babies, toddlers, and under-8, suggests that Meta’s existing controls, if in use, do not offer sufficient safeguards against the monetization of child-focused content.
Automated Eligibility Screening and Prompting
To be able to monetize content, creators must first register for a monetization product.
Meta typically requires accounts to meet a product’s stated eligibility requirements before it unlocks its application process.
Although age and child-focused content are among Meta’s stated monetization eligibility requirements, it’s unclear from our research that Meta systematically screens accounts against these criteria as part of its initial eligibility review.
The case of “Issa Bee”, as documented in the New Mexico court case, is particularly instructive in this regard. Although the account was intentionally created using a fake date of birth to test Meta’s age inference safeguards, the investigators posted content that was designed to alert Meta to the girl’s age, including content about her daily school routine and baby teeth. Despite content signals pointing to the girl being well below 18, the account was able to successfully unlock the Facebook ‘Stars’ application module.
Inadequate Business Partner Qualification Reviews
Going through the setup flow for a monetization product does not guarantee access nor payouts. In order for a monetization product to be formally activated, creators must go through an onboarding review process that requires them to sign on to Meta’s monetization terms, provide contractual information, and pass an additional layer of checks intended to confirm that the account and its owner comply with Meta’s monetization terms and policies.
Our research suggests that Meta’s onboarding checks, as currently implemented, may not be reliable.
We personally tested Meta’s onboarding process by submitting an application under the name “Test Testing”, a fake date of birth, and a fake country.
While the date of birth field was set to automatically reject inputted dates of birth less than 18 years in the past, nothing prevented us from adjusting the date and bypassing that restriction.
Although the information we provided did not match any of the information we had previously provided in connection with the account, our application for the Facebook Stars product was approved in less than 20 minutes.
At no point in this process did Meta ask us to verify anything or provide any supporting documentation.
Payout Account Loopholes
Meta enables creators to start earning immediately upon registering for a monetization product. Specifically, creators can accrue earnings of up to $500 per product and $1,500 overall before they register a payout account.
Registering a payout account is then required to withdraw those earnings as well as to unlock further earning possibilities above these thresholds.
Registering a payout account requires the submission of banking and tax information. While minors may, in some countries, have access to both, this step can add substantial friction.
We were unable to assess as part of this research whether Meta has safeguards in place to prevent children from turning to adults within their network to help them validate this step and manage funds on their behalf, as appears to be suggested by Meta’s AI Support Assistant.
We were also unable to determine, based on publicly available information, what safeguards Meta has in place to ensure that the adults that children turn to are legally authorized to serve as their ‘agent’ and comply with applicable laws around child-labor and child-performer protections, including protections around a child’s best interests, and control of earnings.
This issue extends beyond Meta.
Google, for example, recommends in its help center that under-18 creators link their YouTube channel to an approved AdSense for YouTube account, such as that of a parent or guardian, to start monetizing their videos.
The way forward: Creator Monetization Governance
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Our findings indicate that addressing child-safety risks on social media requires more than limiting children’s access and exposure to addictive product features and unwanted contact. It also requires scrutiny of platforms’ monetization practices and effective safeguards against systems that may create incentives for, or facilitate, the exploitation of children’s attention, images, identities and labor.
Platforms already have rules intended to address some of these risks, while many jurisdictions provide legal protections for children’s rights, best interests, earnings and safety. As this report demonstrates, however, rules and legal protections are insufficient without effective implementation and oversight.
What is needed is a creator monetization governance framework that requires platforms to identify and mitigate foreseeable harms, provides for meaningful transparency and independent oversight, and ensures prompt access to reporting and redress.
Monetization Risk Assessments
Platforms already undertake regular risk-assessments, including around risks affecting children.
As part of these assessments, they should be required to identify, assess and effectively mitigate monetization-related risks adversely impacting children's safety.
Platforms should also be required to publicly disclose the risks identified, along with the mitigation measures they put in place to address these risks.
Monetization Transparency
Platforms already provide transparency around their content moderation, government and legal requests’ handling, and their advertising practices.
Platforms should be expected to provide the same level of transparency around their creator monetization practices as is currently expected of their advertising practices.
Notably, this should include:
- Monetization labels - Platforms should be required to provide account- and content-level monetization labels, enabling users to reliably identify when an account or a particular piece of content is monetized.
- Monetization libraries - Platforms should be required to maintain monetization libraries reflecting the accounts that have benefited from monetization access, as well as the earnings and payouts received.
- Data access - platforms should be required to make data on the monetization history of accounts and content available via an API to regulators and vetted researchers.
- Transparency reports - Platforms should be required to report on the monetization status of the accounts and content they restrict for violating the law or their policies. They should also be required to publish regular reports on their monetization enforcement.
- Transparency centers - platforms should be required to link to their monetization terms and policies and to provide information on their monetization practices and governance in their transparency centers.
Monetization Reporting Pathways
Platforms already enable users to report content and accounts that they suspect violate their policies or the law.
Platforms' existing reporting and escalation mechanisms should be adjusted to support user reporting of accounts and content believed to violate platforms’ monetization terms and policies or the law.
We provided Meta with an opportunity to comment on our findings and offer clarifications on the rules and procedures applied to its monetization products and enforcement. See Annex I of the report for the full list of question.
Meta’s spokesperson offered the following statement in response to our findings.
We do not allow teens under 18 to use Meta's monetization features. We also do not allow accounts that primarily post content of children to monetize, for example by offering subscriptions or receiving gifts. To enforce these rules, we conduct age-checks and use a variety of signals to detect users under-18 and accounts that primarily post content of children. When an account or content violates our policies, we take appropriate action, including removing access to monetization features.”Meta also clarified the following aspects of its monetization rules and procedures:
All creator monetization products on Meta are strictly age-gated to users 18 and older.
Age checks are conducted at the eligibility stagte, at onboarding stage, when payment information is provided, and on an ongoing basis.
Setting Professional Mode ("pro-mode") on Teen Accounts does not bypass age restrictions or automatically enable creator monetization for Teen Accounts. [we note here that Meta did not specify that Teen Accounts are automatically banned from unlocking the application modules for monetization products]
Adult-run minor accounts —which Meta defined as accounts run by adults on behalf of someone under-13– as well as accounts where content predominantly features children are prohibited from using monetization features such as Instagram Gifts or Subscriptions. [we note here that Meta did not specify whether this restriction also applies to its own monetization programs, funded directly by Meta]
Information previously associated with accounts under the Account Center is used as part of Meta’s checks. Meta, however, noted that it understands that creators and businesses may use different names than someone's legal name, and rdeferred to its additional diligence on payout and financial information.
All creator monetization products on Meta are strictly age-gated to users 18 and older. Age checks are conducted at the eligibility stagte, at onboarding stage, when payment information is provided, and on an ongoing basis. Setting Professional Mode ("pro-mode") on Teen Accounts does not bypass age restrictions or automatically enable creator monetization for Teen Accounts. [we note here that Meta did not specify that Teen Accounts are automatically banned from unlocking the application modules for monetization products] Adult-run minor accounts —which Meta defined as accounts run by adults on behalf of someone under-13– as well as accounts where content predominantly features children are prohibited from using monetization features such as Instagram Gifts or Subscriptions. [we note here that Meta did not specify whether this restriction also applies to its own monetization programs, funded directly by Meta] Information previously associated with accounts under the Account Center is used as part of Meta’s checks. Meta, however, noted that it understands that creators and businesses may use different names than someone's legal name, and rdeferred to its additional diligence on payout and financial information.ALSO MONETIZING
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