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Our 15-year-old daughter got deepfaked
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But we won't ban her from social media. We're a family of content creators
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How do you feel knowing that thousands of people watch your video? People accuse us of exploiting our children
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Family vloggers just don't sit right with me at all. Money talks. Poor kid
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I started my account when I was around 13. I think she's got 180,000 followers now
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How do you react when you became aware of actually being deepfaked
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Do you have any feelings of guilt or regret? Right, do you want to grab the stuff out of the fridge
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I'll cut these up. Is this how your normal day begins? Pretty much, yeah. Breakfast
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Get everybody sorted and ready and dressed. Ready for school? Yeah, ready for school
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Well, I'm here. Normal kind of family stuff. How's it going to be? Breakfast
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We are family content creators. We have over 800,000 followers and our children are TikTok creators
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Do you record content on your stations every day? Yeah, we record every day
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We always do a plate up in the evening because people ask for it. They're like, oh, is a plate up happening tonight
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We like doing it as well. It's just a bit of fun. Yeah, just a bit of fun, isn't it? Do you want some honey
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Um, yes, please. Lexi, what are the dishing up videos? Well, Mum basically gets everything in the bowl
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and then the camera goes up there and then you can see down everything
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Is your mum a good cook? Yeah. Yeah, I'll taste it. We try and capture moments and share it
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That's kind, isn't it, Will? Thank you. And then we do lives as well
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We go live on different platforms, don't we? That's kind of a good way to talk with people as well
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Just interact with people. This is where the magic happens. And I am so happy
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How do you feel knowing that thousands of people want to be ready? She's famous, doesn't she
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She does. She tells people she's famous. Oh, look at that. You're so happy
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Yummy. Our family life is pretty crazy. There's always a child needing to be somewhere
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and another one needing to be somewhere else. It's busy, we're busy aren't we? Yeah
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What's your favourite video you've recorded with your family? It's probably one of the collaboration ones
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We get to go somewhere. Like the cinema or... Something like that
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The family is a blended family. So between us, we have five children
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I've got two from a previous marriage which are Lexi and Will. I have two grown up children
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And then we've got Ivy. How would you describe each of your parenting styles
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I think our parenting has sort of blended together more recent years We try and empower them to make their own good choices Go on then Ivy Shopping hall There we go So me and the kids have been shopping
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and they want to show you what they've got. Come on then
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When and why did you start recording videos of your family life
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The first one was actually in lockdown. You did that football one in the living room, didn't you
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Was it that long ago? Yeah, and then we didn't post anything for ages. And then there was another trend
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Long wash, brother. Check it out. thing and Lexi and Sign filmed it in here
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and then the kids were like oh let's see if we can get a hundred followers before we knew it
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their kids were like oh mum we're going to hit a thousand and then it just
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grew from there How do you decide which kids are going to be in
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what videos? Who wants to I was going to say they sort that out
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generally if they want to be in it they're in it, if they don't then they're not
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We never really worried about including the kids in our content I think for us maybe we look at it slightly differently as
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an opportunity maybe. Yeah, I mean it's opened loads of doors to them
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and to us as a family. It's a side piece of work
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a job, a side job. Yeah, like a side hustle. Yeah, yes there is a financial element
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but they earn their own money. Which sort of videos get the most of you
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since you find it's the controversial stuff that is most engaging? We don't, like some of the viral ones
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that we've had, so we had your start of school one, didn't we? Right then Lex, are you ready
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for your first day back at school. And people were in uproar about how short her dress
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her skirt was. That had something like five million views or something ridiculous
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Yeah. And I actually stayed up and watched 900,000. A million. I was like
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what? Just because you've got a kid who's wearing a new uniform. What is the response like
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in the comments section for the stuff you've got? We have had a few
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judgmental comments, haven't we? Family vloggers just don't sit right with me at all
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Okay. They're on your feed, so you must be looking at family vloggers
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Sad bunch of ****, putting their entire life on video for all to see. Seriously
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****. Wow. That's a good one. That was a good one. People accuse us of exploiting our children, but the kids love making content with us
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They want to do it. Money talks. Poor kid. People see a snippet of our life, don't they
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They have no idea who we are, what we do. You know, behind the scenes. We would never force them to do anything that they didn't want to do
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And occasionally... And often they don't. Yeah, Lexi will say, I'm not going to pay up today. And it's like, absolutely fine
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You don't have to. This is my room. Put my phone there. I record basically all my videos When and why did you decide to set up a separate TikTok account for Lexi I always feel that if we said no you not having social media they going to do it anyway
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Okay, so I got sent this bracelet the other day and I'm going to give you guys a bracelet tour. And there's got loads of different jewels in there
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I'm going to show you guys all of them. But we've set it so that it's on my phone as well as hers
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so that everything that she posts is managed by us. I first started kind of experimenting with makeup
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How old was I, like 11? Yeah, probably about 11. And then as I was like 13, I kind of got into like TikTok and stuff
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I started my account when I was around 13. And you can kind of see, if you scroll back down, you can like watch as my account's grown from having like 5,000 followers to like 180,000
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Do you have any concerns about strangers watching Lexi's videos? We have had concerns
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We're not foolish. We understand there are risks out there and exposure to potentially not very nice things
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One of our followers messaged us to let us know that there's somebody on Facebook that is stealing Lexi's image
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And they're like AI-ing it a little bit. I'd never seen anything like it
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They've made her boobs bigger. Changed her face slightly. So it still looks like Lexi
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You could tell it had been... Yeah, it's been shopped. Doctored from her image
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Lexi, those photos, have you seen those? Did you show them at the time
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Yeah, I've seen them. It's a bit strange. Like I'm a bit bored
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But I'm not like extremely bored Because it's just There's nothing to gain from it
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I think we were just kind of shocked As to why somebody would do it
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Obviously we wanted to get it taken down We did report it
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Facebook took it down And we did talk to Lexi about being deep faked
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But it didn't seem to bother her She was very much like Ah, okay
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It's been a little bit of a learning curve But it hasn't made you want to stop posting, has it
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I've made so many friends for it And I've had so many opportunities I've been invited to events, I've been to parties
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I've met so many people through that. And, yeah, I really enjoy doing it
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Do you have any feelings of guilt or regret for what happened? I think when we first became aware, it was a bit like
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oh, God, is this because of what we're doing? Yeah. But I've not ever considered banning them on social media
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I do think that kids are going to do what they're going to do, whether you like it or not
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Hello! my sister's coming over this afternoon uh she didn't really agree with us posting our children
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on social media to start with so what did you think when we first started posting content
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i have to be honest i was concerned i was worried you know what negative effects are they gonna feel from it i think my sister was just unsure about what could happen And I not really sure how she feels about the deepfakes situation
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When you heard about the deepfakes of Let's See, did you feel like we were to blame? What, you two
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Yeah. No. No, because whoever it was could get pictures of anybody from anywhere
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But did you feel like because we allowed her to post, do you think that could have..
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She'd post herself anyway. Yeah. Even if it wasn't on your page, it would be on her own page
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Yeah, that's how we've looked at it, isn't it? Like, that could happen to anyone, couldn't it
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On any... You could be walking down the street and they'd take a photograph of you. Yeah, exactly. So do you think we should be banning the kids from social media
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You could try. If you tell somebody that they can't do something
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they're going to want to do it even more, aren't they? But if they can do it in a safe way with guidance
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then I would 100% go that way rather than doing it on their own
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And I guess Lexi probably learnt from that, didn't she? Yeah, exactly
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Of why... Just be careful. ...what you post. What would you say to people who are judging
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or continuing to put your kids online? I respect people's opinion. Everyone's entitled to their own opinion
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And if you don't want to put your kids online, then don't do it. It's up to you. And if you don't like watching mine, then don't put yourself through it
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It is a choice. You don't have to. I don't have any regrets not banning social media
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I think overall it's a really positive experience for us Yes we have had a little bit of negativity
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The deep fake stuff But it's minute in comparison to And it's here to stay isn't it
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It's going to grow whether the platforms will change But it's not going anywhere
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I'd like to think that Lexi can use her platform for the future
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She can earn money through her platform See where it takes her
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And she might turn around and say I've bought it and I don't want to do it And that's absolutely fine
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Do you think you'll ever stop making content with your family? No, probably not
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Unless we want it. But we don't want it. Yeah. It's like part of our routine now
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It's not like a, oh, we've got to go do this now. It's a, let's go do this now
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Are you excited about the future? Yeah, it's always exciting to think about what's to come
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where the kids are going to end up, will they take social media with them? Of course it's exciting
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We started this, what, two years ago? It could all end tomorrow. Yeah, it could be
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But, you know. But it's been an adventure, isn't it? Yeah, it's been good fun. Yeah
