We continue our series on the dangers of online algorithms for children. Today’s focus: data harvesting and advertising, a powerful system that shapes behaviour, influences beliefs, and monetises personal information.
Behind the convenience and entertainment of social media lies a powerful system built on collecting, analysing, and monetising our personal information. For adults, this is already a complex landscape to navigate — but for children, who are still learning how to recognise risks and protect their privacy, the stakes are even higher. Data harvested through everyday online activity fuels targeted advertising, shapes behaviour, and can even enable harmful political or social manipulation on a massive scale. Before we can teach young people to stay safe, we must first understand how these systems work and why awareness is essential.
Multiple scandals concerning the unauthorised and unethical selling of data to third parties have plagued social media platforms, especially Facebook. The negative effects of this range from the proliferation of false advertising to bolstering hateful political campaigns. Facebook’s algorithmic promotion of misinformation and hateful messaging has been linked by an Amnesty report in 2022 to the discrimination and massacring of the Rohingya people in Myanmar. Social media platforms sell their data to companies and political entities, who then analyse it and identify who is more susceptible to buy their messaging in a much more precise way on a much larger scale, which allows them to then push ads to those who are most susceptible using the same social media platforms. For some children, large swaths of their sensitive information is being shared by their misinformed parents online, and those with ill intent find ways to use it.
This is why everyone needs to be educated on what shouldn’t be shared online (such as personal details, private health data, financial information etc). Additionally, children need to be taught how to approach advertising with a critical eye, from identifying sources, to verifying the validity of the claims made and the motivations of the people advertising their products, services and platforms.
At ABI School, we believe that digital awareness is no longer optional — it is a core part of preparing young people for the world they are growing up in. Teaching students to protect their personal information, recognise manipulation, and question what they see online empowers them to navigate technology with confidence and integrity. When children understand how data is used, they become not just safer users of digital tools, but informed citizens capable of thinking critically and acting responsibly in an increasingly connected world.
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