Latest news with #RubyFranke
New York Times
31-07-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
True Crime to Stream: The Best of 2025, So Far
Mini-Series 'Devil in the Family:The Fall of Ruby Franke' There have been several recent worthwhile documentaries and docuseries that examine the dark side of social media, but no other true-crime offering this year so effectively exposes the disastrous repercussions when religious fanaticism dovetails with social-media fame. This three-parter from Hulu is about the disgraced Utah mommy vlogger Ruby Franke, a mother of six who for years shared much of her family's life on YouTube. At one point, she had about 2.5 million subscribers to the account, earning as much as $100,000 a month. The docuseries makes compelling use of a vast amount of footage, but the previously unreleased outtakes — many of her snapping between personas — are most haunting. Also included are in-depth interviews with Franke's two oldest children, Shari and Chad, and her now ex-husband, Kevin. When the counselor and YouTube creator Jodi Hildebrandt enters the scene, and the Franke's family home, the story veers into places I could never have imagined. As The Times critic Margaret Lyons put it: ''Devil' is not a sloppy rehash. Instead, it is pointed and insightful.' Podcast 'Scam Inc.' It would not be hyperbole to suggest that every American adult should listen to this podcast from the Economist. Over eight episodes, the journalist and host Sue-Lin Wong dives deep into the online scam economy that, according to her reporting, already rivals the size of the illicit drug trade and represents the most significant change in transnational organized crime in decades. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
28-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
How Jodi Hildebrandt's Arrival Led Ruby Franke to Go 'Off the Rails': 'Wolf in Sheep's Clothing'
A new four-part docuseries explores the abusive partnership between Ruby Franke and Jodi HildebrandtNEED TO KNOW A new four-part docuseries explores the abusive partnership between Ruby Franke and Jodi Hildebrandt The docuseries debuts Sept. 1 on Investigation Discovery and will stream on HBO Max Franke and Hildebrandt were sentenced to prison for four convictions of child abuse last yearA new docuseries delves into how a Mormon religious leader influenced a Utah mom whose seemingly wholesome life spiraled into a horrific case of child abuse carried out in the name of God. The series, Ruby & Jodi: A Cult of Sin and Influence, will explore the August 2023 arrest of Mormon family influencer Ruby Franke for felony child abuse and how the mother of six was led down a devious and abusive path by Jodi Hildebrandt, a woman Franke met through her local church who promised to help her become a better wife and mother. The four-part docuseries debuts Sept. 1 on Investigation Discovery and will also be available to stream on HBO Max. 'Over the course of four parts, Ruby & Jodi: A Cult of Sin and Influence offers extensive insight into Jodi Hildebrandt's rise to power within the Mormon community through her popular ConneXions program – and how that program led her to Franke and laid the foundation for the twisted bond they shared,' Investigation Discovery said in a statement provided to PEOPLE on Monday. 'Featuring extensive interviews with former clients, the docuseries underscores the extent of Hildebrandt's cult-like and manipulative tactics that devastated the lives of the individuals who entrusted her with their struggles in hopes of helping themselves and their marriages.' The network says that the docuseries includes exclusive new interviews with Hildebrandt's niece Jesse Hildebrandt, who PEOPLE previously reported had opened up about her own childhood abuse after her aunt was arrested. "This was a wolf in sheep's clothing," one interviewee says about Hildebrandt in the new ID trailer, released Monday. The series also includes an interview with Adam Steed, a former patient of Hildebrandt, who previously told PEOPLE that the religious leader who branded herself for a time as a 'sex therapist' had 'destroyed' his life through her teachings. Investigation Discovery said in its press release that the insight in the docuseries "underscores Hildebrandt's manipulative and dangerous tendencies and how when combined with Franke's strict family values, they created an environment rife with manipulation, control, and abuse.' Franke and Hildebrandt were both arrested in August 2023 and charged with six felony counts of child abuse after Franke's 12-year-old son had escaped Hildebrandt's home, where he was bound and starved, and made his way to a neighbor's house seeking help. The neighbor called 911, leading local police to then discover Franke's 9-year-old daughter being held captive in a similar situation. The women's arrests uncovered a pattern of abusive teaching by Hildebrandt, and confirmed growing suspicions of critics who long questioned Franke's strict parenting style on her popular 8 Passengers family vlogging page on YouTube. Both women were ultimately sentenced to prison on four convictions of child abuse, PEOPLE reported last year, and were sentenced to serve between four and 30 years in prison. Ruby & Jodi: A Cult of Sin and Influence debuts Sept. 1 on Investigation Discovery and will stream on HBO Max. If you suspect child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages. Read the original article on People
Buzz Feed
14-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Buzz Feed
Ed Sheeran's Right – Performative Parenting Isn't Worth Your Kid's Digital Privacy
Ed Sheeran is having a bit of a moment right now. He recently played a free gig in King's Cross after going viral for calling his resurgence a 'recession indicator'; and yesterday, hit podcast Call Her Daddy aired their Ed-pisode too. During his appearance, Ed mentioned his wife (Cherry Seaborn) and their two little girls (Lyra Antarctica and Jupiter). That left some commenters surprised, with one TikToker writing: 'ED SHEERAN IS A FATHER??? How long did I sleep?'. Ed Sheeran took umbrage against a comment which read 'He doesn't spend enough time with his family, he literally could go do/take his children anywhere but chooses to be away from them.' 'Orrr I just don't post them on social media...' the singer replied. Another X post showed what seemed to be a screenshot of the pop star's comment, which read: 'I don't post them on social media because they deserve to be in control of their privacy. 'Just because you don't see something on the internet doesn't mean it doesn't exist.' CLOCK THEM ED — tasha louise 💗 (@eds_afterglow) April 9, 2025 Experts back him up. In 2018, the UK Children's Commissioner released a report called Who Knows What About Me? which found that by the time most kids turned 13, their parents had posted roughly 1300 photos and videos of them online. The report reads: 'We need to stop and think about what this means for children's lives now and how it may impact on their future lives as adults. 'We simply do not know what the consequences of all this information about our children will be. In the light of this uncertainty, should we be happy to continue forever collecting and sharing children's data?' A 2022 paper found that 'sharenting', or posting pictures and other content of your children online, can harm their safety, privacy, and even lead some parents to make an unfair profit off their children in an unregulated market. Disney+ Recent Disney + Show Devil In The Family: The Fall Of Ruby Franke highlighted perhaps the most extreme and horrific case of child abuse involving 'sharenting.' Ruby Franke, who was sentenced for child abuse, created the hugely successful family advice vlog 8 Passengers. A 2023 paper found that 'sharenting syndrome' – an obsession with and even addiction to posting your children online – 'could result in neglect and abuse, and it could lead to children's images being used on inappropriate sites.'
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Yahoo
Utah's new child influencer law cracks the veneer of social media fame
In a February Hulu documentary featuring Shari Franke, eldest child of the infamous mommy blogger Ruby Franke, Shari's brother Chad and her father, Kevin, viewers are privy to behind-the-scenes video from the now-defunct family vlog. In one clip, Ruby smiles while recording herself before breaking off to scream at her family off-screen. The documentary, titled 'Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke,' features several moments like this, moments that illustrate what detractors see as a wider phenomenon in which the family blogging industry is exposed for its many pitfalls and deceptions, particularly as it pertains to the protection and treatment of children. Indeed, Utah, where the Franke family resided and recorded daily family life for years, has become the fourth state to legislate protections for influencer kids with the passing of HB 322 into law in March, following high-profile activism from Franke family members, who were YouTube family vlogging royalty before matriarch Ruby was arrested on charges of child abuse. Ruby Franke and her estranged husband, Kevin Franke, were the head of the YouTube family channel '8 Passengers.' At its height, the channel commanded more than 2 million subscribers. In her content, Ruby Franke often touted strict parenting, like the time she infamously refused to bring her 6-year-old daughter lunch after the child had forgotten it or when her teenage son was made to sleep on a beanbag for months as a punishment. In 2023, Franke and her business partner, Jodi Hildebrandt, were arrested on charges of child abuse after Franke's 12-year-old son escaped from Hildebrandt's house. The child appeared emaciated and had wounds on his wrists and ankles. Franke's 9-year-old daughter was found in a closet of Hildebrandt's house, in a similar state. Hildebrandt and Franke each pleaded guilty to four counts of felony child abuse, for which they were sentenced to up to 30 years in prison. The fallout of Ruby Franke's arrest was intense. For detractors of family vloggers and mom influencers, Franke's arrest was proof positive that their suspicions were correct and something ominous was lurking under the perfect veneer of social media fame. Anti-vlogging advocates had the feeling that the bottom was finally falling out of a deeply rotten industry. Buffeted by the moment, Shari Franke, the eldest child of Ruby Franke, spoke in front of the Utah Legislature, saying, 'There is no ethical or moral family vlogger.' In the wake of the Franke family tragedy, calls for protections for kids of influencers have intensified. Though people often assume that child influencers are covered under legal protections for child actors, they're not. In 46 of 50 states, it's legal for parents to feature their kids in monetized or sponsored content without paying the children for their labor. It's particularly impactful for Utah, of all states, to have passed legislation for the privacy and profits of influencer kids, as experts often point to Utah as a hot spot for mom influencers, family vloggers and kid influencers. There's an entire book to be written about why Mormon people are so drawn to influencing — and why they're often so successful at it, including the fact that recordkeeping and scrapbooking are mainstay traditions of the Mormon faith, skills that lend themselves to content creation — but the bottom line is that Utah is one of the most popular states for family vloggers and mom influencers. And though people who were raised as kid influencers aren't a monolith, it's important to listen to them when they speak about their experiences, like when Shari Franke told Rolling Stone, 'Making money off your kids [with] no oversight as to how much the kids are getting paid — there's no way to do that well for me.' I'm a journalist who covers family vloggers and mom influencers, and my take on their work is far from black-and-white. I don't believe that showing your kid online is immoral in itself. We shouldn't conflate the horrors of Ruby Franke's story with the lives of every kid featured in their influencer parents' content. And not every mom influencer and family vlogger are evil — far from it. But if there's an industry that turns on the labor of kids, it makes sense to compensate them for their labor, at the very least. This article was originally published on
Yahoo
30-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Ruby Franke abuse pushes Utah to shift money, power from mommy bloggers to child influencers
The eldest daughter of disgraced Utah parenting blogger Ruby Franke has taken action to help protect other kids with a new child actor law in her home state. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox signed the bill that Shari Franke helped promote, HB322, which gives certain payment and privacy protections to minors involved in entertainment, which could include traditional acting, i.e. acting in TV commercials, or acting in social media content. "I have been working on drafting HB322 that would protect child influencers in our state," Shari Franke said in a February Instagram post. "This bill would require parents to create a trust fund for their children and require parents to pay children a minimum amount. It would also allow children influencers, at 18, to have any content they appeared in to be removed from all social media platforms." Shari added that certain family bloggers and lobbyists in Utah are against the legislation, but wrote that "[i]f family vlogging is as good as 'ethical' family vloggers want you to think, they should not fear being mandated to pay their children (because they say the children are already being paid anyway)." Mommy Blogger Ruby Franke Asked Daughter For One Thing Before Arrest: Memoir "And if children are supposedly consenting to being filmed, why fear the kids would want content removed once 18?" she wrote. Read On The Fox News App Shari's support of HB322 is one of many actions she has taken to try and help protect the rights of children whose parents are social media influencers since her mother pleaded guilty to multiple counts of child abuse in 2023 and sentenced to years in prison. Mommy Blogger Ruby Franke's Husband Says 'Some Crazy S--t' Went On In Abuse Accomplice's $5.3M Fortress Democratic Utah State Rep. Doug Owens, who sponsored the bill, explained its purpose to Fox News Digital. "It's a bill that has a couple different parts: one is it protects traditional child actors, like in the film industry or making commercials, [it] has their parents set aside 15% of their earnings for when they become an adult, and that is copying a number of other states," Owens said. "And then it goes further and also includes protections for children in social media content." He added that it is "usually" children's parents featuring kids in their content and, in turn, earning money from that content. Youtube Mommy Blogger Ruby Franke, Co-host Jodi Hildebrandt Sentenced For Child Abuse: 'Dark Delusion' "It … requires the parents or other adult to save some of that money for the kids when they get to be an adult," he said. "And then it also has a third part, which says that if you are a child in content creation, when you get to be an adult and you find that content embarrassing or emotionally damaging in some way, you can have that removed from the website later so that it gives kids some protection for when they get to be an adult." Ruby Franke, a 43-year-old mother of six, and Jodi Hildebrandt, a 55-year-old mother of two, ran a joint parenting and lifestyle YouTube channel called ConneXions Classrooms before they were arrested and pleaded guilty to four of six counts of second-degree aggravated child abuse in a St. George courtroom in December 2023. Utah Police Discover 'Panic Room' Inside Abusive Mommy Blogger Accomplice's $5.3M Desert Home Utah authorities initially arrested Ruby Franke and Hildebrandt for abusing Franke's two youngest children, a 9-year-old girl and 12-year-old boy, after Franke's son approached a neighbor for help in 2022, and the neighbor called 911. Some of the abuse occurred in Hildebrandt's home in Ivins, Utah. 911 Call Reveals Shock Of Utah Mommy Blogger's Alleged Child Abuse: 'She's A Bad Lady' Prior to ConneXions, Ruby Franke ran a parenting vlog, or video blog, called 8Passengers, centered around her own family of six children and two parents. But the 8Passengers empire came crumbling down once users started to notice Franke's unusual behavior and punishments for her children. Ruby Franke stopped posting to the 8Passengers YouTube channel after her last video was uploaded on June 5, 2019. Fox News is not aware of any evidence that Ruby Franke or anyone associated with 8Passengers engaged in any illegal conduct during the period she was actively vlogging on the 8Passengers YouTube channel. Franke and Hildebrandt were both sentenced to serve up to 30 years in prison. Shari also wrote a memoir titled "The House of My Mother," in which she explains how she and her siblings were listed as 8Passengers LLC's "employees." Click To Get The Fox News App In dozens of YouTube videos and social media posts, Franke and Hildebrandt coached parents in calm voices from a living room couch on how to raise their children in "truth." In a video posted just before their arrests, Hildebrandt said pain can be a good thing for children of a certain age. The case has prompted discussions about how parenting and lifestyle blogs often present only a sliver of a person's or family's reality, as well as children's rights to their own privacy if their parent is a social media article source: Ruby Franke abuse pushes Utah to shift money, power from mommy bloggers to child influencers
