Reset Australia Report Concludes that Facebook Continues Targeting Children with Gambling Ads

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Last updated: December 1, 2021

A survey by Fairplay, Global Action Plan, and Reset Australia found evidence that Meta, formerly Facebook, continues to use data from teenagers to deliver algorithmically targeted advertising.

It comes even after big tech announced in July that it would limit advertisers’ ability to target under-18s ads on Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger. Since then, the conglomerate has changed its name to Meta; however, it seems to continue carrying out the old practices.

Facebook guaranteed, at the time, that previously available targeting options would no longer be available to advertising companies.

However, a study conducted by three organizations (Fairplay, Reset Australia, and Global Action Plan) found that Facebook and Instagram have not limited the use of surveillance advertising and continue to collect personal data from children to feed their systems of advertising distribution.

Facebook’s Unending Rhetoric

The practice is of concern to organizations as, for example, advertising can be targeted at teenagers with eating disorders or when a teenager’s mood suggests they are particularly vulnerable.

In essence, Instagram and Facebook continue to use the so-called Conversion API software, which gathers teen browsing data to define the target audience for ads.

To prove their point, investigators created three fake accounts – for one 13-year-old and two 16-year-olds – and verified that the data was collected by the company’s software as users opened other web pages, such as newspapers and stores with clothes.

Facebook can collect data from other pages that children open and collect information such as the links they click on, the words they search for, or the products they buy or put in the shopping cart, explains the study. There is no reason to keep this type of data, except to feed the ad distribution system,” he adds.

Meta denies that it is using the tracking data for advertising purposes. However, tests conducted by the study indicate that teen account information continues to be tracked to target ads, driven by Artificial Intelligence (AI), to under-18s.

The complaint comes after Meta faces the leak of internal documents to the press that indicate the company was aware that using Instagram was harmful to teenagers.

Frances Haugen, responsible for disseminating the reports, has given testimony to congressmen from the United States and the European Union, who intend to establish stricter legislation, with parameters of transparency and governance, for social media.

During the testimonies, Haugen was emphatic that there is no AI-powered safe social network for teenagers since the brains of young people are still developing, and the algorithms can exploit the mental health of children and teenagers to continue profiting.

Australia Clamps Down on Gambling Advertising

The investigation is the conclusion of the state review that exposed schemes to produce a set of industry rules to defend teens’ data rights. Reset Australia says Facebook is no longer trustworthy when it comes to creating code that puts kids first.

“Facebook has been caught red-handed using children’s data to target them with ads that they will be vulnerable to. They can’t be trusted to draft a code designed to protect children and their data,” the report adds.

YouGov and Reset Australia surveyed 400 children in Australia. The poll found that 82% of respondents were unhappy with the advertisements they experienced, and 67% of children wanted to ban gambling ads.