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Old footage of an influencer explaining why she won’t adopt a child from Thailand has resurfaced.
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Nikki Phillippi said she stopped the adoption after finding out she could not film the child for YouTube.
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The resurfaced video has led to a renewed backlash against Phillippi and her husband Dan.
Footage of lifestyle and family influencer Nikki Phillippi saying she and her husband were halting their adoption plans is resurfacing on social media and leading to a renewed backlash against the couple.
Nikki Phillippi is a YouTuber with 1.2 million subscribers who typically posts vlogs documenting her life with her husband Dan and son Logan, who is now three years old.
In a 2018 YouTube video, Nikki and Dan said they were hoping to adopt a child from Thailand but were told that the agency’s policies would prohibit them from sharing content about the child on social media for a year.
In the full video on YouTube, they also said they were unhappy about the length of the adoption process, as it would take a year to finalize, and added that they didn’t want to cause “harm or repercussions to other people, and an entire organization for that matter” if they broke the social-media rule.
On May 31, a short segment of the video was reuploaded on TikTok by an account that often posts old footage of big influencer controversies.
“Does anybody remember this? She still has over a million subscribers on YouTube,” a caption on the TikTok, which received 5 million views, read.
In the video, Nikki said, “Here’s the situation, Thailand has its own law that’s unique to it that after you pick up your child and they are your child you are not allowed to talk about them or share any images, photos, videos, anything about them online for a year.”
Dan added, “I mean, Nikki’s got a YouTube channel, we share a whole lot.”
“When that hit, we literally were like, ‘What?'” Nikki said.
The TikTok has also gone viral on Twitter, where the clip was reuploaded and received an additional 12 million views, and a number of Twitter users said they thought the YouTuber and her husband intended to “exploit” the adopted child for “views” and clout.
This is not the first time the clip has resurfaced and caused backlash. In 2021, the video was also uploaded on Twitter and went viral in response to a controversy around the Phillippis putting down their dog, which led to accusations of animal cruelty and resulted in online users discussing old controversies the influencer was involved in.
Holt International, the adoption agency that the Phillippis said they worked with at the time, told Insider in an email in May 2021 that the social-media policy is part of Thai adoption law, which restricts the release of an “adopted child’s information, photos, videos and films to mass media or Internet before finalization by Thai Law.”
Nikki Phillippi did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment at the time, or a renewed request for comment regarding the latest backlash to the clip.
Influencers are increasingly receiving backlash over concerns about the ethics of filming young children. Family vloggers have previously been accused of exploitation for posting videos of their children, due to concerns about whether those children can consent to being filmed. Some parents have deliberately chosen not to spotlight their kids on the internet as a result.
In May 2022, the UK’s Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport Committee released a report expressing concern that child content creators are “being used by parents and family members as a source of revenue, affecting their privacy and creating security risks.” Meanwhile, in March, the French National Assembly approved draft legislation to protect children’s rights to their own images.
For more stories like this, check out coverage from Insider’s Digital Culture team here.
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