Welcome to Parent Pixels, a parenting newsletter filled with practical advice, news, and resources to support you and your kids in the digital age. This week:
Tech giants have some ‘splaining to do. First up: Google and Meta allegedly made a secret deal to target advertisements for Instagram to teens on YouTube, according to the Financial Times. The project, which began in early 2023, exploited a loophole to bypass Google’s own rules prohibiting ad targeting to users under 18.
The advertising agency Spark Foundry, working for Meta’s marketing data science team, was tasked with attracting more Gen Z users to Instagram, which has been losing ground to rival apps like TikTok. Evidence suggests that Google and Spark Foundry took steps to disguise the campaign’s true intent, bypassing Google’s policy by targeting a group called “unknown”—which just so happened to skew toward users under 18.
Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, which advocates for child privacy, said, “It shows you how both companies remain untrustworthy, duplicitous, powerful platforms that require stringent regulation and oversight.”
Speaking of oversight … the Justice Department is suing TikTok and parent company ByteDance for violating children’s privacy laws. According to a press release, ByteDance and its affiliates violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which prohibits website operators from knowingly collecting, using, or disclosing personal information from children under the age of 13 without parental consent.
The complaint alleges that from 2019 to the present, TikTok:
These allegations come amid ongoing legal battles over a TikTok ban in the U.S. To add to the controversy, the Justice Department recently accused TikTok of gathering sensitive data about U.S. users, including views on abortion and gun control. The Justice Department warned of the potential for “covert content manipulation” by the Chinese government, suggesting that the algorithm could be designed to influence the content that users receive.
That’s a lot to take in: Indeed. We often talk to parents about the balance between trust and monitoring. We can trust our kids, but we can’t always trust Big Tech companies to protect them or prioritize their well-being.
Taking an active role in your child’s digital life is about more than just supervising their online activity — it also involves considering how these companies use children’s data and how they might influence what your child consumes.
If your child uses social media or YouTube, it’s a good idea to periodically check their feeds together. A child safety app like BrightCanary can help make this easier, but nothing beats having open conversations with your child about what they share and what they see.
Parent Pixels is a biweekly newsletter filled with practical advice, news, and resources to support you and your kids in the digital age. Want this newsletter delivered to your inbox a day early? Subscribe here.
Unfortunately, the popularity of parental control apps has attracted scammers that want to swindle and frustrate people. Here’s how to identify and avoid parental control scams on iPhone and Android, plus tips to select a reputable app that does what it claims.
Did you know that your kid could be using private browsing to hide their online activity from you? Despite this workaround, parents still have options for monitoring their child online. Here’s what you should know and how to talk to your kid about incognito mode.
Tech giants don’t have our children’s best interests at heart. Privacy is important, but so is staying informed and keeping our kids safe — parents need to understand what their children are consuming, both in their algorithms and through ads. If you’re worried about the privacy conversation, here are some conversation starters:
🤖 Roblox recently released new resources to educate users about generative AI (think: ChatGPT, DALL-E, and Roblox’s own GenAI). Here’s the guide for families and one made for teens.
👑 Meghan Markle and Prince Harry have entered the child safety chat: The Parents’ Network, a new initiative from the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, is intended to assist families of children lost due to social media harm.
👻 Snapchat rolled our new safety features, including expanded in-app warnings, enhanced friending protections, and simplified location sharing. (We’re still not fans of Snapchat for younger kids, but if your teen uses Snap, it’s worth checking out the app’s parental controls.)
😔 Watching just eight minutes of TikTok focused on dieting, weight loss, and exercise content can harm body image in young women, according to a new study.
