Children are up against unknown professional influencers when online. They include marketers, political activists, criminals, and sexual predators online, adults with experience and resources.
At the heart, these adults want to change children’s behaviours and attitudes to benefit their own economic, political or sexual exploitation agendas. These professionals will use any digital means to achieve their goals, but how they access and use children’s data is important to note. Gathered from social media, toys, and digital devices, the data create digital profiles that are used for data-driven, tailored services, and targeted marketing. These profiles, curated and gathered by algorithms, may be helpful, however, often they are not. More importantly, we don’t know the greater impact of how this data collection and the profiles generated will affect children when they are older. (read more)
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