Within the pages of our guilty pleasure entertainment magazines, or within the links of our favorite blogs, there are constantly pictures of our favorite Hollywood A-list celebs. We thrive on knowing who is dating whom, who wore this years Dolce and Gabbana dress best, and who is pregnant with baby number two. Along with the relentless snapshots of these adult celebrities are pictures of their children, most of whom are under the age of 18; minors who need parental consent for their image to be published. The paparazzi are grown men and women who stalk these children and their parents at parks, schools, restaurants, and even directly in front of their homes. They scream, yell, and flash their cameras in the kids’ faces; they will do anything to get a picture so that they can make a buck. It’s how some of them make their living.

In 2013, after having enough paparazzi harassment, actresses Jennifer Garner and Halle Berry introduced California State Bill 606, which was successfully signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown. According to an article published by E! Online, SB606 “increases the possible punishment for harassing celebrity kids and clarifies the legal definition of harassment in such cases.” E! Online also stated that “if shutterbugs are convicted of harassing a minor who has been targeted based on his or her parent’s employment they can spend up to a year in jail… and be fined $10,000 for their first violation, $20,000 for their second and up to $30,000 for their third.” SB606 also makes it easier for a parent to sue paparazzi over harassment. Halle Berry said, “My daughter doesn't want to go to school because she knows ‘the men’ are watching for her…” And Jennifer Garner went on record saying, “I chose, by way of my career, to have a ‘public life’ but my children are private citizens. I don’t want a gang of shouting, arguing, law breaking photographers who camp out everywhere we are all day, every day, to continue traumatizing my kids.”  

Although this bill was successfully passed, magazines and websites were still flooded with these paparazzi pictures. It wasn't until mid-2014, almost one year after SB606 was passed, that actress Kristen Bell and her husband, actor Dax Shepard, took to Twitter to create the hashtag “#NoKidsPolicy.” They referred to the paparazzi as “pedarazzi” and strongly encouraged consumers to stop buying magazines that publish photos of children whose parents did not consent to their children being photographed. Many other celebrities, both with and without children, retweeted Bell’s and Shepard’s tweets and created their own tweets to send out to their millions of followers. This led to a social media phenomenon, resulting in countless magazines and blogs stating that they would no longer publish unconsented photos of famous children. Some magazines and television outlets that jumped on the #NoKidsPolicy bandwagon are People Magazine, US Weekly, Glamour Magazine, Good Morning America, Access Hollywood, E! Entertainment, Extra, and ABC. There are still magazines, such as Life & Style and OK Magazine, that have not agreed to this policy and thus continue to publish these controversial photographs. 

Celebrity blogger Perez Hilton said in a statement that he “will post photos of any children of celebs if their parents take them to a red carpet, fashion show, media event or something of the like where it is expected and understood they will be photographed” and he also “will post photos of children that celebs post themselves on social media, photos of children whose parents include them on reality television or do not object to them being photographed by paparazzi at family outings.” All the magazines and websites who agreed to this policy said the same thing in each of their individual statements as well.   

What surprised me the most, however, was that Twitter had a bigger impact on these magazines and their consumers than that of a California state bill. Now I’m wondering, does social media have the ability to bring about more change than that of the government? 

Tweet me at @chloee_coops and let me know your thoughts on the #NoKidsPolicy!