Child protection nonprofit alleges 'manipulative' upselling with math game Prodigy

NBC NEWS:  “Schools are signing up for this and not understanding that the commercial pressure is going to happen when kids are at home,” said one expert.

The Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood, a nonprofit advocacy group, on Friday accused a popular math game used in thousands of elementary schools of using “deceptive marketing and manipulative tactics” in a letter of complaint to the Federal Trade Commission.

Prodigy is a role-playing game aimed at first through eighth graders where players create customized wizard characters that enter “battles” to earn stars and prizes for solving curriculum-aligned math problems. The game has been downloaded more than 7.3 million times in North America since the start of 2019, according to the app researcher App Annie. Prodigy said that more than 90,000 schools globally — two thirds of them in the United States and the rest mostly in Canada, Australia and India — have used it to assign math homework...

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/child-protection-nonprofit-alleges-manipulative-upselling-math-game-prodigy-n1258294

Parents' Coalition Signs on to Statement on EdTech and Education Policy during the Pandemic

Today, CCFC led a coalition of over 100 experts and advocacy organizations in calling  for schools across the country — whether classes are in-person or remote — to  center meaningful, offline learning for students instead of making hasty purchases of EdTech. You can read our full statement below. For a Spanish version of our statement, click here. 

We are approaching an educational crossroads, accelerated by the COVID-19 school closures and remote learning experiments of this spring. We cannot afford another year in which students become alienated from the learning process. Furthermore, the decisions and investments school districts make in the coming months will shape educational practices long after the pandemic ends.

The undersigned urge educators and policymakers to look beyond simplistic EdTech solutions, and find ways to limit children’s time on computers and digital devices during the coming school year and beyond. We recognize that there is significant uncertainty about what school will look like in the fall and that education across the United States will look vastly different from state to state and district to district. Nevertheless, whether school is in-person, remote, or some combination thereof, educators should ensure that their curricula and assignments center on offline, high-engagement components such as hands-on, project- and place-based learning.

Seizing an opportunity to capture a larger portion of the $10 trillion global education market,1 for-profit EdTech vendors are selling families and policymakers the false premise that EdTech products offer effective and budget-friendly ways to learn. In reality, the products are costly to purchase and maintain, and frequently crowd teachers and staff out of the budget. The products also ensnare students, whose data and brand loyalty are harvested, and who often become targets of relentless marketing efforts. These efforts include the insidious practice of upselling, through which students and their families are pushed to purchase premium versions, thereby exacerbating inequalities among students. Equally important, these programs reduce the roles played by creative, compassionate teachers in educating the whole child. Learning happens best in the context of human relationships and is lost when the balance is skewed toward online platforms.

The value of quality, teacher-driven instruction is well-supported by research.2 There is no credible research supporting industry claims that online, personalized learning programs improve academic outcomes.3,4 Test scores do not rise. Dropout rates do not fall. Graduation rates do not improve. In 2019, fewer than half of virtual and blended schools had “acceptable” state performance ratings, and only 30% of virtual schools associated with for-profit Education Management Organizations (EMO) managed to meet even that low bar.5 A study of millions of high school students in 36 countries by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found that students who frequently used computers at school “do a lot worse in most learning outcomes, even after accounting for social background and student demographics.”6

EdTech is destined to underdeliver because of how the human brain reacts to screen-based media. In short: the brain doesn’t like it. Reading text on paper increases comprehension, retention, and sheer satisfaction with reading as an activity.7 Writing by hand boosts idea generation as well as retention.8 Children between the ages of 8 and 11 who spend more than two hours per day on screens perform worse on memory, language, and thinking tests than those who spend less time.9 The sensorimotor stimuli that screens offer are paltry compared to real life stimuli, and developing brains are more severely impacted by this disparity.10

Prolonged time on screens impairs more than just cognition; it is also hard on the body. Working on screens for long periods leads to digital eye strain – with symptoms including dry eye, headaches, and blurry vision – and increases the risk of myopia.11,12 Research has clearly established a link between increased screen time and worsened sleep for children and teens.13 A wealth of research also links screen exposure to childhood obesity.14

Additionally, EdTech platforms collect sensitive student data and require substantial time online, putting our children’s personal safety at risk. A study of 150 EdTech apps and services found “widespread lack of transparency and inconsistent privacy and security practices for products intended for children and students.”15 After investigating a series of data breaches that allowed hackers to use sensitive student data to “contact, extort, and threaten students with physical violence and release of their personal information,” the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center warned in 2018 that EdTech poses threats to student privacy and safety, including “social engineering, bullying, identity theft, or other means for targeting children.”16 That warning proved prescient. This spring, the FBI issued an additional warning to parents,17 and The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received more than 4 million reports of online sexual abuse – an increase of nearly 3 million from April 2019.18 In addition, sensitive student data, once processed into “de-identified data,” can be used for non-educational, profitable activities. Worse, de-identified data can be reconstituted as personally-identifiable data.19 Privacy laws have yet to catch up with technological know-how.

While EdTech is touted as a way to increase equity in schools, it falls short on that front as well. Ensuring that every family has free or low-cost internet access and all students who must learn from home have access to a device are critical and worthy goals, as the recent global pandemic has further revealed. There is no evidence, however, that 1:1 programs reduce the achievement gap between children from poor and wealthy families. Indeed, research has found that the introduction of internet access into low-income households actually results in lower academic achievement.20 Programs to give low-income families access during the pandemic must be accompanied by tech-intentional and low-tech pedagogies.

For the safety, wellbeing, and academic potential of our children, reducing screen use during the pandemic has to be a priority – no matter the adopted reopening plan. Real, personalized learning can take place without overly relying on technology, especially algorithm-driven, computerized instruction. We urge educators to deepen learning for children during the pandemic with high-engagement, tech-intentional teaching and learning based on the following principles:

• Limit screen time. Use technology only when necessary for communication, collaboration, research, or facilitating creative expressions of student learning. Algorithm-driven adaptive learning platforms, gamified learning, and similar apps that incorporate persuasive design to keep kids online should be avoided.
• Embrace teachers and relationships over EdTech. Teachers engage learners better than EdTech, and learners engage better when learning is authentic. Remote learning, when needed, should be driven by human interactions and designed to maximize student engagement and agency through use of project- and place-based pedagogies and other self directed projects.
• Maximize offline, hands-on learning. Students, particularly younger children and children with special needs, learn better offline and hands-on. Therefore, schools have an obligation to maximize offline, hands-on learning – even if students are at home – by encouraging structured activities such as reading actual books, writing by hand, art, movement, outdoor play, real-world math projects, and nature exploration. During remote learning, schools must find ways to support families by providing physical books and supplies, in recognition of the fact that not all families are in a position to provide these things.
• Avoid hasty purchases and decisions during the pandemic that may lead to the overuse of EdTech for many years to follow. Instead, invest in educators.
• Privacy matters. Schools must understand and mitigate any privacy risks before assigning a platform or service to students. Schools should avoid services that do not clearly delineate who will have access to students’ sensitive data and for what purpose. Schools should also not assign platforms or apps that contain advertising, including upselling students and their families on premium versions, thereby exacerbating inequalities among students.

The impulse to embrace EdTech during the initial months of the pandemic was understandable; but the continued centering of education around EdTech is neither desirable nor inevitable. Parents and educators now know this to be true.

Fortunately, there is an alternative to EdTech: trusting educators to work together and employ their intelligence and creativity to design and deliver curricula that keep all students engaged while deepening their learning, even in a pandemic. Our children and our nation deserve nothing less than safe schools and low-tech, child-centered, educator-driven learning.

SIGNATORIES

Organizations

Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood

The Alliance for Early Childhood

Badass Teachers Association

Boston Teachers Union

Center for Digital Democracy

Center for Humane Technology

Class Size Matters

Collegiate Coaching Services

Defending the Early Years

DurableHuman.com

Everyschool

Illinois Families for Public Schools

Live Above the Noise Podcast

Massachusetts Association for Infant Mental Health: Birth to Six, Inc.

Massachusetts Teachers Association

MI Ed Justice

Nature Club Kids

Network for Public Education

New Mexico Pediatric Society

NoAppForLife.com

NYS Allies for Public Education (NYSAPE)

Obligation, Inc.

The Opt Out Florida Network

Parent Coaching Institute

Parent Coalition for Student Privacy

Parents’ Coalition of Montgomery County, MD

ParentsTogether

Peace Educators Allied for Children Everywhere (PEACE)

Raise Your Hand for Illinois Public Education

Roots & Sky Nature School

ScreenStrong

Southern Early Childhood Association

Turning Life On

United Church of Christ, OC Inc.

Waldorf Early Childhood Association of North America (WECAN)

Washington Nature Preschool Association (WaNPA)

Individuals

Affiliations are for identification purposes only.

Matthew J. Bach, President, Andover Education Association

Nancy E. Bailey, Ph.D., @nancyebailey.com

Marsha Basloe, President, Child Care Services Association

Criscillia Benford, Ph.D., media theorist and co-author of “Sensory Metrics of Neuromechanical Trust”; member, Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood Board; member, Children’s Screen Time Action Network Advisory Board

David C. Berliner, Regents’ Professor Emeritus, College of Education, Arizona State University; author, The Manufactured Crisis (with B. Biddle); 50 Myths and Lies that Threaten America’s Public Schools (with G. Glass)

Faith Boninger, Ph.D., National Education Policy Center, School of Education, University of Colorado Boulder

Laura Bowman, Child and Public Schools Advocate

Cynthia Boyd, M.D., M.P.H

Carol Burris, Ed.D., executive director, the Network for Public Education

Angela J. Campbell, Chairman of the Board of Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood and Professor Emeritus, Georgetown Law

Patricia Cantor, Ed.D., Plymouth State University; co-author, Techwise Infant/Toddler Teachers: Making Sense of Screen Media for Children Under 3; member, Children’s Screen Time Action Network Advisory Board

Nancy Carlsson-Paige, Ed.D., Professor Emerita, Lesley University; co-founder, Defending the Early Years

Connie Casha, M.Ed., Early Childhood Specialist, Tennessee

Emily Cherkin, founder, The Screentime Consultant

Erika Christakis, M.P.H., M.Ed., early childhood educator and author, The Importance of Being Little

Joe Clement, co-author, Screen Schooled

Lisa Cline, Chair, Montgomery County Council of PTAs Safe Technology Committee

Mary Cornish, Professor of Early Childhood Education, Plymouth State University

Larry Cuban, Emeritus Professor of Education, Stanford University

Tracy Cutchlow, author, Zero to Five: 70 Essential Parenting Tips Based on Science; member, Children’s Screen Time Action Network Advisory Board

Libby Doggett, Ph.D., former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Policy and Early Learning, US Dept of Education

Lori Dorfman, Dr.P.H., Director, Berkeley Media Studies Group and Associate Adjunct Professor, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley

Diane Dreher, Ph.D., Professor of English, Santa Clara University; author, Your Personal Renaissance

Eleanor Duckworth, Professor Emerita, Harvard Graduate School of Education; author, The Having of Wonderful Ideas, and other essays on teaching and learning

George Dyson, author of Analogia, Turing’s Cathedral, and Darwin Among the Machines

Cindy Eckard, student health activist and ScreensandKids.us blogger

Seth Evans, Chair, Screens in Schools Work Group, Children’s Screen Time Action Network

Jean Ciborowski Fahey, Ph.D., author, Make Time for Reading

Betsy Fox, Fox Educational Consulting

Richard Freed, Ph.D., psychologist and author of Wired Child; member, Children’s Screen Time Action Network Advisory Board

Roberta M. Golinkoff, University of Delaware; author, Becoming Brilliant

Sheryl R. Gottwald, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, University of New Hampshire

Tristan Harris, co-founder and president, Center for Humane Technology

Mindy Holohan, M.A., CFLE, Family Science Faculty, Western Michigan University

Kay Johnson, M.P.H., Ed.M., President, Johnson Group Consulting, Inc.

Denisha Jones, Ph.D., J.D., Director of Art of Teaching, Sarah Lawrence College

Brett P. Kennedy, Psy.D.

Marla Kilfoyle, retired educator NY, NBCT

Alfie Kohn, author, The Schools Our Children Deserve

Catherine L’Ecuyer, Ph.D. in Education and Psychology; author, The Wonder Approach

Diane Levin, Ph.D., Applied Professor of Human Development, Boston University; author, Beyond Remote Control Childhood; founder, Teachers Resisting Unhealthy Children’s Entertainment (TRUCE)

Richard Levy, Ph.D., Professor of Political Science Emeritus

Susan Linn, Ed.D., Lecturer on Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School; author, The Case for Make Believe: Saving play in a commercialized world and Consuming Kids: The hostile takeover of childhood; member, Children’s Screen Time Action Network Advisory Board

Dr. Robert MacDougall, Professor of Communication and Media Studies, Curry College

Barbara Madeloni, former president, Massachusetts Teachers Association

Roxana Marachi, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Education, San José State University; member, Children’s Screen Time Action Network Advisory Board

Deborah Meier, retired teacher and founder of Central Park East schools in East Harlem and Mission Hill in Boston; author of The Power of Their Ideas

Matt Miles, co-author, Screen Schooled

Alex Molnar, Ph.D., Director, Commercialism in Education Research Unit, National Education Policy Center

Kathryn C. Montgomery Ph.D., Professor Emerita, School of Communication, American University

Daniel M. Mulcare, Ph.D., Chair, Department of Political Science, Salem State University

Dipesh Navsaria, M.P.H., M.S.L.I.S., M.D.; Associate Professor of Pediatrics, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health; member, Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood Board

Susan Ochshorn, founder, ECE PolicyWorks; author, Squandering America’s Future

Meghan Owenz, Ph.D., Assistant Teaching Professor, Penn State University

Rae Pica, author, What If We Taught the Way Children Learn?

Jenny Radesky, M.D., Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, University of Michigan Medical School

Dr. Anthony Rao, psychologist; author, The Power of Agency & The Way of Boys

Diane Ravitch, Ph.D., NYU

Kimberly Redigan, M.A., high school teacher; nonviolence trainer; blogger, Write Time for Peace

Thomas Robinson, M.D., M.P.H., Irving Schulman, MD Endowed Professor in Child Health, Professor of Pediatrics and of Medicine, Stanford University; member, Children’s Screen Time Action Network Advisory Board

Douglas Rushkoff, Ph.D., Professor of Media Studies, CUNY/Queens; author, Team Human

Holly Seplocha, Ed.D., Professor of Early Childhood Education, William Paterson University

Brooke Shannon, founder and Executive Director of Wait Until 8th

Tiffany Shlain, author of 24/6: The Power of Unplugging One Day a Week; founder, The Webby Awards; director, Let it Ripple Film Studio; member, Children’s Screen Time Action Network Advisory Board

Craig Slatin, Sc.D., M.P.H., Professor Emeritus, University of Massachusetts Lowell

William Softky, Ph.D., Neuro/Data/Physical/Computational Scientist; co-author, “Sensory Metrics of Neuromechanical Trust”

Dr. Mari Swingle, Ph.D. Psych, M.A. Psych, M.A. Education, Clinical Researcher, Practicing Clinician/Psyhchoneurophysiology; author of i-Minds: How Cell Phones, Computers, Gaming, and Social Media are Changing Our Brains, Our Behavior, and the Evolution of Our Species

Jim Taylor, Ph.D., author, Raising Generation Tech: Preparing Your Children for a Media-fueled World

Sherry Turkle, Ph.D., Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology, MIT; author, Reclaiming Conversation; member, Children’s Screen Time Action Network Advisory Board

Kevin Welner, Ph.D., Professor of Education, University of Colorado Boulder; Director, National Education Policy Center

REFERENCES

1 Lunden, Ingrid. “ClassDojo, an App to Help Teachers and Parents Communicate Better, Raises $35M.” TechCrunch (blog). Accessed July 24, 2020. https://social.techcrunch.com/2019/02/28/classdojo-an-app-to-help-teachers-and-parents-communicate-better-raises-35m/.

2 See, e.g., Mohammed, Saro. “Tech or No Tech, Effective Learning Is All about Teaching.” Brookings (blog), September 6, 2018. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2018/09/06/tech-or-no-tech-effective-learning-is-all-about-teaching/.

3 Molnar, Alex, Gary Miron, Najat Elgeberi, Michael K. Barbour, Luis Huerta, Sheryl Rankin Shafer, and Jennifer King Rice. “Virtual Schools in the U.S. 2019,” May 28, 2019. https://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/virtual-schools-annual-2019.

4 OECD. “Students, Computers and Learning,” 2015. https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/content/publication/9789264239555-en.

5 Molnar et al. (2019).

6 OECD (2015).

7 Jabr, Ferris. “The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Paper versus Screens.” Scientific American. April 11, 2013. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/reading-paper-screens/.

8 Berninger, Virginia W., Robert D. Abbott, Janine Jones, Beverly J. Wolf, Laura Gould, Marci Anderson-Youngstrom, Shirley Shimada, and Kenn Apel. “Early Development of Language by Hand: Composing, Reading, Listening, and Speaking Connections; Three Letter-Writing Modes; and Fast Mapping in Spelling.” Developmental Neuropsychology 29, no. 1 (2006): 61–92. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15326942dn2901_5.

9 Walsh, Jeremy J., Joel D. Barnes, Jameason D. Cameron, Gary S. Goldfield, Jean-Philippe Chaput, Katie E. Gunnell, Andrée-Anne Ledoux, Roger L. Zemek, and Mark S. Tremblay. “Associations between 24 Hour Movement Behaviours and Global Cognition in US Children: A Cross-Sectional Observational Study.” The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health 2, no. 11 (November 1, 2018): 783–91. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2352-4642(18)30278-5.

10 Softky, William, and Criscillia Benford. “Sensory Metrics of Neuromechanical Trust.” Neural Computation 29, no. 9 (June 9, 2017): 2293–2351. https://doi.org/10.1162/neco_a_00988.

11 Sheppard, Amy L., and James S. Wolffsohn. “Digital Eye Strain: Prevalence, Measurement and Amelioration.” BMJ Open Ophthalmology 3, no. 1 (April 1, 2018): e000146. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjophth-2018-000146.

12 Varma, Rohit, Jennifer Deneen, Susan Cotter, Sylvia H. Paz, Stanley P. Azen, Kristina Tarczy-Hornoch, Peng Zhao, and Multi-Ethnic Pediatric Eye Disease Study Group. “The Multi-Ethnic Pediatric Eye Disease Study: Design and Methods.” Ophthalmic Epidemiology 13, no. 4 (August 2006): 253–62. https://doi.org/10.1080/09286580600719055.

13 Hale, L., & Guan, S. (2015). Screen time and sleep among school-aged children and adolescents: a systematic literature review. Sleep medicine reviews, 21, 50–58. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smrv.2014.07.007

14 Robinson, Thomas N., Jorge A. Banda, Lauren Hale, Amy Shirong Lu, Frances Fleming-Milici, Sandra L. Calvert, and Ellen Wartella. “Screen Media Exposure and Obesity in Children and Adolescents.” Pediatrics 140, no. Supplement 2 (November 1, 2017): S97–101. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2016-1758K.

15 Garton, Steve, Jeff Graham, Jill Bronfman, and Girard Kelly. “2019 State of EdTech Privacy Report.” Common Sense Media, 2019. https://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/uploads/research/2019-state-of-edtech-privacy-report.pdf.

16 Federal Bureau of Investigation Internet Crime Complaint Center. “Education Technologies: Data Collection and Unsecured Systems Could Pose Risks to Students,” September 13, 2018. https://www.ic3.gov/media/2018/180913.aspx.

17 Federal Bureau of Investigation. “School Closings Due to COVID-19 Present Potential for Increased Risk of Child Exploitation.” Press Release. March 23, 2020. https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/school-closings-due-to-covid-19-present-potential-for-increased-risk-of-child-exploitation.

18 Brewster, Thomas. “Online Child Abuse Complaints Surpass 4 Million In April. This Is How Cops Are Coping Despite COVID-19.” Forbes, May 9, 2020. https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2020/05/09/online-child-abuse-complaints-surpass-4-million-in-april-this-is-how-cops-are-coping-despite-covid-19/#556dffd848db.

19 Boninger, Faith, Alex Molnar, and Christopher Saldaña. “Big Claims, Little Evidence, Lots of Money: The Reality Behind the Summit Learning Program and the Push to Adopt Digital Personalized Learning Platforms,” June 25, 2020. https://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/summit-2020.

20 Vigdor, Jacob L., Helen F. Ladd, and Erika Martinez. “Scaling the Digital Divide: Home Computer Technology and Student Achievement.” Economic Inquiry 52, no. 3 (2014): 1103–19. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecin.12089.

Advocates Worldwide Call to Protect Children from Edtech Exploitation

LONDON / BOSTON - Today, 33 human rights and consumer groups from all over the world called on governments and the education sector to protect children from commercial exploitation during the COVID-19 pandemic.

An estimated 90% of the world’s student population are affected by school closures. The signatories — organized by Defend digital me and Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) — recognise that technology is playing a vital role worldwide in supporting learning and the delivery of school-home communication. 

In a joint statement, the advocacy groups propose actions to make sure that this global rush to deliver emergency instruction online does not undermine children’s rights, with lasting effects long after lockdowns are over.

The groups ask data protection authorities to co-operate globally to publish guidelines, monitor practice, and enforce compliance of e-learning platforms, children’s apps and other edtech. They urge policymakers to consider the impacts of the use of digital tools; to conduct and publish children’s rights’ and data protection impact assessments; and to ensure that staff, children, and families are given training with regard to privacy and security.

The coalition calls on decision makers to take responsibility for any products they procure or recommend, and to require companies to demonstrate that they uphold children’s rights as recognised by the United Nations, and offer a secure space for all children to access knowledge without commercial interference.

Jen Persson, Director, defenddigitalme:
“Making rights’ respecting choices now, and for our children’s future, depends on cooperation across the whole sector; and understanding for the local and international frameworks of law. This unplanned crisis is pushing schools in particular to free products, whose business models often rely on opaque ways of exploiting something else for profit: pupil or staff personal data, or advertising in-app products to children or parents. Privacy is not only a right we must protect, it is a practical necessity to the development and adoption of responsible online technology, for the good of society, and for keeping children safe.”

Josh Golin, Executive Director, Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood:
“It’s inspiring how families and educators have stepped up to keep kids learning in this most difficult time. But we cannot trample children’s other critical rights in the rush to provide remote learning. Tech companies should not be allowed to use this crisis to mine even more of children’s sensitive data or to expose students to marketing messages masquerading as lessons.” 

Groups signing today’s letter were: Defend digital me; Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood; Access Now; Aspiration; Badass Teachers Association; Berkeley Media Studies Group; Biometrics-in-Schools; Bolo Bhi; Child Rights International Network (CRIN); Consumer Action; Consumer Federation of America; Corporate Accountability; Digital Rights Foundation; EDRi (European Digital Rights); Educadigital Institute - Open Education Initiative; Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) Inc.; Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC); El Instituto Panameño de Derecho y Nuevas Tecnologías (IPANDETEC); Instituto Alana; New Dream; Obligation, Inc.; Open Rights Group; Parent Coalition for Student Privacy; Parents Across America; Parents Together; P.E.A.C.E. (Peace Educators Allied For Children Everywhere); Privacy International; Privacy Salon; Public Citizen; Public Knowledge; TEDIC (The Association of Technology, Education, Development, Research, Communication); TRUCE (Teachers Resisting Unhealthy Childhood Entertainment); and Women Leading in AI Network.

Read the coalition’s letter here.

https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2020/04/16/advocates-worldwide-call-protect-children-edtech-exploitation?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=twitter

CCFC: Social Distancing as a Family: Screen Time Strategies and Resources

In this time of great uncertainty and upheaval, parenting can be even more challenging than usual. This special two-part Action Network Live! Q&A series brings developmental experts directly to you to help your family navigate these uncertain times. What questions do you have about play, boredom, screen time, learning, socialization, or routines under social distancing and quarantine? How are you experiencing this sudden shift? Our experts are here to help.

https://commercialfreechildhood.org/socialdistancing/

Press Release from Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood

For Immediate Release Contact: Jeffrey Chester, CDD: jeff@democraticmedia.org, (202) 494-7100 Josh Golin, CCFC: josh@commercialfreechildhood.org (339) 970-4240  Children’s privacy advocates call on FTC to require Google, Disney, other leading companies to disclose how they gather and use data to target kids and families Threats to young people from digital marketing and data collection are heightened by home schooling and increased video and mobile streaming in response to COVID-19 WASHINGTON, DC and BOSTON, MA – March 26, 2020 – With children and families even more dependent on digital media during the COVID-19 crisis, the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) and the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) called on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to require leading digital media companies to turn over information on how they target kids, including the data they collect. In a letter to the FTC, the advocates proposed a series of questions to shed light on the array of opaque data collection and digital marketing practices which the tech companies employ to target kids.  The letter includes a proposed list of numerous digital media and marketing companies and edtech companies that should be the targets of the FTC’s investigation—among them are Google, Zoom, Disney, Comcast, AT&T, Viacom, and edtech companies Edmodo and Prodigy.   The letter—sent by the Institute for Public Representation at Georgetown Law, attorneys for the advocates—is in response to the FTC’s early review of the rules protecting children under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).  The groups said “children’s privacy is under siege more than ever,” and urged the FTC “not to take steps that could undermine strong protections for children’s privacy without full information about a complex data collection ecosystem.” The groups ask the Commission to request vital information from two key sectors that greatly impact the privacy of children: the edtech industry, which provides information and technology applications in the K-12 school setting; and the commercial digital data and marketing industry that provides the majority of online content and communications for children, including apps, video streaming, and gaming. The letter suggests numerous questions for the FTC to get to the core of how digital companies conduct business today, including contemporary Big Data practices that capture, analyze, track, and target children across platforms. “With schools closed across the country, American families are more dependent than ever on digital media to educate and occupy their children,” said CCFC’s Executive Director, Josh Golin. “It’s now urgent that the FTC use its full authority to shed light on the business models of the edtech and children’s digital media industries so we can understand what Big Tech knows about our children and what they are doing with that information. The stakes have never been higher.” “Although children’s privacy is supposed to be protected by federal law and the FTC, young people remain at the epicenter of a powerful data-gathering and commercial online advertising system," said Dr. Katharina Kopp, Deputy Director of the Center for Digital Democracy. “We call on the FTC to investigate how companies use data about children, how these data practices work against children’s interests, and also how they impact low-income families and families of color. Before it proposes any changes to the COPPA rules, the FTC needs to obtain detailed insights into how contemporary digital data practices pose challenges to protecting children. Given the outsize intrusion of commercial surveillance into children’s and families’ lives via digital services for education, entertainment, and communication, the FTC must demonstrate it is placing the welfare of kids as its highest priority.”   In December, CCFC and CDD led a coalition of 31 groups—including the American Academy of Pediatrics, Center for Science in the Public Interest, Common Sense Media, Consumer Reports, Electronic Privacy Information Center, and Public Citizen—in calling on the FTC to use its subpoena authority. The groups said the Commission must better assess the impacts on children from today’s digital data-driven advertising system, and features such as cross-device tracking, artificial intelligence, machine learning, virtual reality, and real-time measurement.  “Childhood is more digital than ever before, and the various ways that children's data is collected, analyzed, and used have never been more complex or opaque,” said Lindsey Barrett, Staff Attorney and Teaching Fellow at IPR’s Communications and Technology Law Clinic at Georgetown Law. “The Federal Trade Commission should shed light on how children's privacy is being invaded at home, at school, and throughout their lives by investigating the companies that profit from collecting their data, and cannot undertake an informed and fact-based revision of the COPPA rules without doing so.”  "Children today, more than ever, have an incredible opportunity to learn, play, and socialize online,” said Celia Calano, student attorney at the Institute for Public Representation. “But these modern playgrounds and classrooms come with new safety concerns, including highly technical and obscure industry practices. The first step to improving the COPPA Rule and protecting children online is understanding the current landscape—something the FTC can achieve with a 6(b) investigation." ###

Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood educates the public about commercialism's impact on kids' wellbeing and advocates for the end of child-targeted marketing. CCFC organizes parents to hold corporations accountable for their marketing practices, advocates for policies to protect kids, and works with parents and professionals to reduce children's screen time.

What Changes at YouTube Mean For Kids, Creators, and the Rest of Us

The biggest lesson of this settlement and its aftermath? The way we make and think about media for children needs to change.

In 2018, CCFC, the Center for Digital Democracy and a coalition of 23 advocacy groups filed a complaint urging the Federal Trade Commission to investigate YouTube and Google for massive, ongoing violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. We weren’t trying to catch anyone on a technicality – we were blowing the whistle on one of the most powerful companies in the world for knowingly and illegally profiting off of kids’ personal data.

Our complaint detailed how Google was, for years, intentionally violating COPPA by pretending obviously kid-directed channels like Little Baby Bum, ChuChuTV Nursery Rhymes, and Ryan Toys Review weren’t actually for kids. This was a huge money-maker for YouTube: at the same time Google falsely said in its TOS and to the FTC that YouTube wasn’t for kids, the company was charging premium prices for ads on child-directed content and bragging to advertisers that YouTube was the new Saturday morning cartoons. We asked the FTC to investigate YouTube and Google, not the channels of individual creators, because we believe that YouTube as a platform is ultimately responsible for making sure its data and ad policies follow the law. (And even when rumors of this settlement were first swirling, we urged the FTC not to shift the burden of compliance to creators.) We also focused only on channels that were obviously child-directed, because those are the channels where the audience is overwhelmingly the kids that COPPA was intended to protect.

Now that the FTC has investigated and found that Google and YouTube were violating the law, there are big changes underway on YouTube, including restrictions on data collection and advertising on child-directed content. Advocates, lawmakers, and child development experts recognize that this is a long overdue step to enforce COPPA — which has been the law for years — and end the insidious practice of collecting personal data from kids in order to target them with manipulative behavioral ads...

https://commercialfreechildhood.org/what-the-youtube-changes-mean-for-kids-creators-and-the-rest-of-us/

YouTube’s child viewers may struggle to recognise adverts in videos from ‘virtual play dates’

As child vloggers have risen in fame and fortune, more and more content has been targeted at younger viewers, however research shows that children often struggle to recognise embedded advertising and there have been no attempts to introduce a disclosure system that is more tailored to child audiences, writes Rebecca Mardon. Rebecca is a senior lecturer in marketing and strategy at Cardiff University. Rebecca’s research explores emerging consumer behaviours in digital contexts, in particular ownership and possession in the context of digital materiality and emerging forms of commercialisation within online communities. [Header image credit: M.-Newman-CC-BY-NC-ND-2.0.jpg]

YouTube’s highest earning star in 2018 was a seven-year-old boy named Ryan. That’s right – a child out-earned the likes of the infamous Logan Paul, video game vlogger PewDiePie, and even make-up mogul Jeffree Star. Between June 2017 and June 2018, Ryan is estimated to have earned an impressive US$22m from the platform.

Guided by his parents, Ryan presents his own YouTube channel, Ryan ToysReview, where he unboxes and plays with the latest toys. Since joining YouTube in 2015, Ryan has amassed more than 18.5m subscribers, the majority of whom are, unsurprisingly, children. Discussing the appeal, Ryan’s mother explained that viewers feel like they’re “on a play date with him and going on fun, pretend play adventures”.

Advertising literacy

Ryan’s channel has become a lucrative business, complete with 25 employees, including video editors, writers and production assistants. It achieved initial commercial success by allowing more traditional “pre-roll” adverts to appear before its videos, which mostly saw Ryan playing with toys – which his parents say they buy. The channel later began to embed advertising content for major brands, such as Walmart, within Ryan’s own videos. More recently, the business launched a range of Ryan’s World toys that often feature in his video content.

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/parenting4digitalfuture/2019/09/25/youtubes-child-viewers-may-struggle-to-recognise-adverts/

Campaign for Commercial-Free Childhood Screen Free Week April 29 - May 5 2019

https://www.screenfree.org/

Campaign for Commercial Free Childhood Annual Report

It’s an exciting time for those of us who believe that corporate profits should never come at the expense of children’s wellbeing. Teachers are pushing back against intrusive educational technologies that profit off student data. Pundits and politicians are finally asking tough questions about Big Tech. Parents are helping one another navigate the challenges of (not) giving smartphones to pre-teens. And Silicon Valley executives are questioning whether the technologies they’ve unleashed are really good for children. You’ve helped make kids and commercialism a mainstream issue, and in this new climate, we’re more effective than ever.
In just the past twelve months, CCFC has:
• Exposed how one of the world’s most powerful companies illegally collects children’s sensitive data (p. 3).
• Launched a cross-disciplinary network of professionals who believe that reducing kids’ screen time is both necessary and possible (p. 6).
• Stopped a major toymaker from interfering in family relationships and spying on children (p. 1).
• Organized experts, advocates, and parents to say “no!” to the first major social network for young kids (p. 2).
• Convened the first-ever national conference dedicated to helping children and families unplug from ad-supported screens (p. 7).

We’re challenging the myths that corporations make good caregivers and teachers, that saturating kids in commercialism is an inevitable facet of modern life, and that face-to-face peer and family relationships are a vestige of days past. We’re excited about the impact we’re having in Washington and in state houses (p. 4), and we’re proud of the real changes CCFC members are making in their classrooms (p. 7), communities (pp 8-9), and homes (p. 10). We owe all of our success to you, our passionate and committed supporters. As you reflect on all we’ve achieved together this year, we hope you’ll consider sharing our work with the people and organizations in your community who are dedicated to supporting kids’ wellbeing. As you’ll see in these pages, it takes collaboration, creativity, and strength in numbers to ensure that every child gets the commercial-free time and space they deserve...

http://www.commercialfreechildhood.org/sites/default/files/devel-generate/rof/CCFC%20FY18%20Annual%20Report%20Final.pdf

National Organization Lobbies MoCo Delegates Ann Kaiser and Eric Luedtke House Bill 1110

https://ccfc.salsalabs.org/marylandschools/index.html

Dear Chairwoman Kaiser and Delegate Luedtke,

I am a Maryland resident, and I urge you to vote in favor of HB1110, "Public Schools – Health and Safety Guidelines and Procedures – Digital Devices." 

I am very concerned about the health risks children face as a result of required digital device use in their public school curriculum. Research tells us it isn't healthy for kids to be glued to screens all day, even for educational purposes. Excessive screen time is linked to attention and hyperactivity disorders, social-emotional problems, sleep disturbances, and irregular sleep patterns.

When we send our kids to school, we should be confident that they will be protected in their classrooms, not put at risk. This bill will allow parents, educators, and health professionals to develop guidelines for device use that will protect children’s health.

Please pass HB1110.

Click Below for Petition: 

https://ccfc.salsalabs.org/marylandschools/index.html