7 ms·

Yikes, ads for kids is atrocious

by onemoresoop 3y ago

martinky24 3y ago
I don't love the idea either, but in what way is this worse than ads on Nickelodeon?
- progman32 3y ago
  Does it need to be? Both are bad in my reckoning.
  - n3storm 3y ago
    Spanish public tv removed commercials from public and online channels years ago.
    - nomel 3y ago
      There are no tax dollars going to Roblox.
  - nineplay 3y ago
    Were the ads on Howdy Doody bad? Ad supported content has been around for over a century, I think people get a little overworked sometimes about what a great evil it is.
- add-sub-mul-div 3y ago
  Cable TV ads aren't a hypertargeting/surveillance nightmare.
  - RonToaster 3y ago
    Yes they are, depending on factors like network, location or industry you can target specific demographics or use crossmarketing
    - foobarian 3y ago
      Even if they aren't we got swindled into cutting the cord so the old user-blind platform can be quietly retired.
      - SllX 3y ago
        Swindled you say. When I look at my monthly video entertainment spend vs a cable bill from my childhood (let alone what it would be today), the quality and options available and the control over scheduling I have vs linear television, I’m not feeling very swindled.
  - fidotron 3y ago
    They are, and have been for years. Cable TV programming, by which I mean deciding what is broadcast on what channel when, has long (decades) been a question of identifying the audience for the ads coming in, working out what they want to see, showing it, and billing the advertiser. You may even create whole new channels for this target group. Most consumers get it backwards thinking ads exist to fund channels - channels only exist to show you ads. Even back in around 2000 in the UK satellite market (which relied on modems in STBs phoning home as the backchannel) the granularity and segmentation of the data backing this was amazing. Unsurprisingly the people I knew in that universe went on to build the current web ad universe.
    - Dylan16807 3y ago
      > identifying the audience for the ads coming in, working out what they want to see, showing it, and billing the advertiser. You may even create whole new channels for this target group. That's broad targeting. Miles away from hypertargeting/surveillance. > back in around 2000 in the UK satellite market (which relied on modems in STBs phoning home as the backchannel) That is a problem, but is also not cable TV. Are cable modems phoning home?
      - fidotron 3y ago
        Next up you will be confused that store loyalty cards have been marketing analytics the whole time.
        Dylan16807 3y ago
        Do you really need to be an ass instead of just saying yes or no with some proof? For most of the existence of cable, there was no way for it to send a signal back. It is not fundamentally based on tracking. The targeting you described in detail is not tracking.
        fidotron 3y ago
        I mean you simply went off showing you don’t know what you are talking about, then ask a stupidly basic question and when it gets the snarky answer it warranted claim the other person is an ass?
constantcrying 3y ago
Roblox already allows children to engage in a in-game stock market for items. Ads were overdue to be honest.
- YurgenJurgensen 3y ago
  Wasn't it way worse than that? While it may be a bit sensational, "Casinos for children built with child labour who were paid in company scrip" isn't a technically inaccurate description of Roblox.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - gowld 3y ago
    That can describe every game in the world. It's a game, a closed world, not real life substistence farming.
    - Dylan16807 3y ago
      Most games don't use real money to buy in. So it doesn't describe them in the same way. "Scrip" here is something that takes real effort to get, and is sort of money, but rips you off when you use it. Not something completely unconnected to the real world.
milesvp 3y ago
I refuse to let my kids play Roblox. "You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy ...". That place is full of kids scamming each other, and I've not heard many good things about the company either. I was once trying to tell my child about this in a public setting, and a nearby older kid was just smirking knowingly about all the things I was talking about. Gambling, theft, foul language. Frankly, it almost seems like a good playground for older kids to learn some cheap life lessons from, but I'm not sure what age one can partake of some of these things without it warping your personality.
- tboyd47 3y ago
  It always seemed like a gateway drug to gambling to me.
  - nomel 3y ago
    I've made a couple games with my kids, and these types of comments are very confusing to me. Roblox is a storefront for user made games. There's no single experience. Is this in reference to the "loot box" style mechanics that some games use?
    - tboyd47 2y ago
      It's in reference to the need to spend money and buy things in the game to enjoy the game. Roblox isn't unique in that way, but it's still strange to me.
- lyk2005 3y ago
  How do you partake in the real world without it warping your personality? Being scammed of your virtual items is not that different to being scammed of real money once you are an adult. Growing up with multiplayer games, Roblox can be categorized as an immersive sim with a virtual adult world inside of it that can teach kids a great deal about life. I myself got interested in money from Runescape, where I was scammed and scammed others. Since you brought an example I have my own, I ended a friendship over Runescape because I trusted my friend and he stole all my items. I cried for a week but then I moved on and learned to identify bad actors. You choose to shelter your kid, and that's okay because you are the parent.
endtime 3y ago
FTA: > The company in November began testing the video ads — that will be served to users who are 13 years and older Maybe by kids you meant 13-17...but I feel like teenagers are not exactly a demographic that never sees targeted ads (e.g. through social media, on YouTube, etc.). (Full disclosure, I work for Roblox, but not on anything related to ads. Obviously representing just myself and not my employer.)
- NegatioN 3y ago
  > I feel like teenagers are not exactly a demographic that never sees targeted ads That is definitely true, but my opinion would be that they need "less ads", and not "more". That's a phase of life when most people are very suseptible to societal messaging, and form their self-image (partly?) based on it. Not all ads are created 100% equal of course, so one can only hope these ads are nice to the users.
- littlestymaar 3y ago
  > Maybe by kids you meant 13-17...but I feel like teenagers are not exactly a demographic that never sees targeted ads Since DSA targeting ads to minors is forbidden in the EU though.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 3y ago
  I'm sure a child under 13 would never lie about their age, especially if desirable features are age-gated.
- autoexec 3y ago
  > Maybe by kids you meant 13-17...but I feel like teenagers are not exactly a demographic that never sees targeted ads ( No, they absolutely see them, but teenagers should still be protected from them, because they're not mature enough to even know when they're being manipulated. https://www.marketingdive.com/news/study-82-of-middle-school-kids-cant-distinguish-ads-from-actual-news/430934/ https://www.marketingdive.com/news/study-82-of-middle-school...
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
thisisauserid 3y ago
I seem to recall targeted advertisements for breakfast cereals and toys. Was it atrocious? Maybe, but it was old way before I was born. I'm shocked that people are shocked.
nomel 3y ago
This comment seems is fairly disconnected from the reality of what the average kid experience these days. Television, Youtube, Hulu, Peacock, TikTok [1], gaming consoles, and the vast majority of iPhone and android games are all full of ads. 80% of kids have access to tablets/phones [2]. [1] 50% of kids are on TikTok. https://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2023/03/new-data-proves-number-of-kids-using.html https://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2023/03/new-data-pro... [2] 80% have access to tablets. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/04/tablets-more-common-in-households-with-children.html https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/04/tablets-more-...
- karaterobot 3y ago
  Yikes, that's an atrocious number of ads for kids!
- itishappy 3y ago
  I'd argue those stats are also atrocious.
- babypuncher 3y ago
  That doesn't make it OK.
  - edvards 3y ago
    We have ads everywhere. Teaching kids on how to handle ads is rather reasonable.
    - idle_zealot 3y ago
      Or we could stop normalizing mass manipulation on an unprecedented scale.
      - ryandrake 3y ago
        It's crazy the extent to which targeted ads have been normalized as "a part of life"... to the point where we have people defending targeting children, with "Well they get targeted with ads elsewhere, too." We are in one of the more terrible universes in the multiverse.
autoexec 3y ago
Roblox maybe advertising to kids very aggressively. Recently a redditor claimed that this was their child's assigned homework (https://i.redd.it/6o2r9jazhoxc1.jpeg https://i.redd.it/6o2r9jazhoxc1.jpeg) It seems to come from MagiCore (magicoreacademy.com) who also offers this "Virtual Field Trip to Disney World" (https://magicorelearning.com/shop/product-line/virtual-field-trips/virtual-field-trip-to-disney-world-google-slides-seesaw https://magicorelearning.com/shop/product-line/virtual-field...) and while they claim to not be affiliated with Disney (who is usually very litigious about any use of their name/characters), they don't say anything like that about Roblox here https://magicorelearning.com/shop/florida-b-e-s-t-standards/authors-opinion-2nd-3rd-florida-best-standards-ela-2-r-2-4-3-r-2-4 https://magicorelearning.com/shop/florida-b-e-s-t-standards/...

Yikes, ads for kids is atrocious

martinky24 3y ago

I don't love the idea either, but in what way is this worse than ads on Nickelodeon?

progman32 3y ago
Does it need to be? Both are bad in my reckoning.
- n3storm 3y ago
  Spanish public tv removed commercials from public and online channels years ago.
  - nomel 3y ago
    There are no tax dollars going to Roblox.
- nineplay 3y ago
  Were the ads on Howdy Doody bad? Ad supported content has been around for over a century, I think people get a little overworked sometimes about what a great evil it is.
add-sub-mul-div 3y ago
Cable TV ads aren't a hypertargeting/surveillance nightmare.
- RonToaster 3y ago
  Yes they are, depending on factors like network, location or industry you can target specific demographics or use crossmarketing
  - foobarian 3y ago
    Even if they aren't we got swindled into cutting the cord so the old user-blind platform can be quietly retired.
    - SllX 3y ago
      Swindled you say. When I look at my monthly video entertainment spend vs a cable bill from my childhood (let alone what it would be today), the quality and options available and the control over scheduling I have vs linear television, I’m not feeling very swindled.
- fidotron 3y ago
  They are, and have been for years. Cable TV programming, by which I mean deciding what is broadcast on what channel when, has long (decades) been a question of identifying the audience for the ads coming in, working out what they want to see, showing it, and billing the advertiser. You may even create whole new channels for this target group. Most consumers get it backwards thinking ads exist to fund channels - channels only exist to show you ads. Even back in around 2000 in the UK satellite market (which relied on modems in STBs phoning home as the backchannel) the granularity and segmentation of the data backing this was amazing. Unsurprisingly the people I knew in that universe went on to build the current web ad universe.
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    > identifying the audience for the ads coming in, working out what they want to see, showing it, and billing the advertiser. You may even create whole new channels for this target group. That's broad targeting. Miles away from hypertargeting/surveillance. > back in around 2000 in the UK satellite market (which relied on modems in STBs phoning home as the backchannel) That is a problem, but is also not cable TV. Are cable modems phoning home?
    - fidotron 3y ago
      Next up you will be confused that store loyalty cards have been marketing analytics the whole time.
      - Dylan16807 3y ago
        Do you really need to be an ass instead of just saying yes or no with some proof? For most of the existence of cable, there was no way for it to send a signal back. It is not fundamentally based on tracking. The targeting you described in detail is not tracking.
        fidotron 3y ago
        I mean you simply went off showing you don’t know what you are talking about, then ask a stupidly basic question and when it gets the snarky answer it warranted claim the other person is an ass?

constantcrying 3y ago

Roblox already allows children to engage in a in-game stock market for items. Ads were overdue to be honest.

YurgenJurgensen 3y ago
Wasn't it way worse than that? While it may be a bit sensational, "Casinos for children built with child labour who were paid in company scrip" isn't a technically inaccurate description of Roblox.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- gowld 3y ago
  That can describe every game in the world. It's a game, a closed world, not real life substistence farming.
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    Most games don't use real money to buy in. So it doesn't describe them in the same way. "Scrip" here is something that takes real effort to get, and is sort of money, but rips you off when you use it. Not something completely unconnected to the real world.

milesvp 3y ago

I refuse to let my kids play Roblox. "You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy ...". That place is full of kids scamming each other, and I've not heard many good things about the company either. I was once trying to tell my child about this in a public setting, and a nearby older kid was just smirking knowingly about all the things I was talking about. Gambling, theft, foul language. Frankly, it almost seems like a good playground for older kids to learn some cheap life lessons from, but I'm not sure what age one can partake of some of these things without it warping your personality.

tboyd47 3y ago
It always seemed like a gateway drug to gambling to me.
- nomel 3y ago
  I've made a couple games with my kids, and these types of comments are very confusing to me. Roblox is a storefront for user made games. There's no single experience. Is this in reference to the "loot box" style mechanics that some games use?
  - tboyd47 2y ago
    It's in reference to the need to spend money and buy things in the game to enjoy the game. Roblox isn't unique in that way, but it's still strange to me.
lyk2005 3y ago
How do you partake in the real world without it warping your personality? Being scammed of your virtual items is not that different to being scammed of real money once you are an adult. Growing up with multiplayer games, Roblox can be categorized as an immersive sim with a virtual adult world inside of it that can teach kids a great deal about life. I myself got interested in money from Runescape, where I was scammed and scammed others. Since you brought an example I have my own, I ended a friendship over Runescape because I trusted my friend and he stole all my items. I cried for a week but then I moved on and learned to identify bad actors. You choose to shelter your kid, and that's okay because you are the parent.

endtime 3y ago

FTA: > The company in November began testing the video ads — that will be served to users who are 13 years and older Maybe by kids you meant 13-17...but I feel like teenagers are not exactly a demographic that never sees targeted ads (e.g. through social media, on YouTube, etc.). (Full disclosure, I work for Roblox, but not on anything related to ads. Obviously representing just myself and not my employer.)

NegatioN 3y ago
> I feel like teenagers are not exactly a demographic that never sees targeted ads That is definitely true, but my opinion would be that they need "less ads", and not "more". That's a phase of life when most people are very suseptible to societal messaging, and form their self-image (partly?) based on it. Not all ads are created 100% equal of course, so one can only hope these ads are nice to the users.
littlestymaar 3y ago
> Maybe by kids you meant 13-17...but I feel like teenagers are not exactly a demographic that never sees targeted ads Since DSA targeting ads to minors is forbidden in the EU though.
tgsovlerkhgsel 3y ago
I'm sure a child under 13 would never lie about their age, especially if desirable features are age-gated.
autoexec 3y ago
> Maybe by kids you meant 13-17...but I feel like teenagers are not exactly a demographic that never sees targeted ads ( No, they absolutely see them, but teenagers should still be protected from them, because they're not mature enough to even know when they're being manipulated. https://www.marketingdive.com/news/study-82-of-middle-school-kids-cant-distinguish-ads-from-actual-news/430934/ https://www.marketingdive.com/news/study-82-of-middle-school...

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

thisisauserid 3y ago

I seem to recall targeted advertisements for breakfast cereals and toys. Was it atrocious? Maybe, but it was old way before I was born. I'm shocked that people are shocked.

nomel 3y ago

This comment seems is fairly disconnected from the reality of what the average kid experience these days. Television, Youtube, Hulu, Peacock, TikTok [1], gaming consoles, and the vast majority of iPhone and android games are all full of ads. 80% of kids have access to tablets/phones [2]. [1] 50% of kids are on TikTok. https://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2023/03/new-data-proves-number-of-kids-using.html https://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2023/03/new-data-pro... [2] 80% have access to tablets. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/04/tablets-more-common-in-households-with-children.html https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/04/tablets-more-...

karaterobot 3y ago
Yikes, that's an atrocious number of ads for kids!
itishappy 3y ago
I'd argue those stats are also atrocious.
babypuncher 3y ago
That doesn't make it OK.
- edvards 3y ago
  We have ads everywhere. Teaching kids on how to handle ads is rather reasonable.
  - idle_zealot 3y ago
    Or we could stop normalizing mass manipulation on an unprecedented scale.
    - ryandrake 3y ago
      It's crazy the extent to which targeted ads have been normalized as "a part of life"... to the point where we have people defending targeting children, with "Well they get targeted with ads elsewhere, too." We are in one of the more terrible universes in the multiverse.

autoexec 3y ago

Roblox maybe advertising to kids very aggressively. Recently a redditor claimed that this was their child's assigned homework (https://i.redd.it/6o2r9jazhoxc1.jpeg https://i.redd.it/6o2r9jazhoxc1.jpeg) It seems to come from MagiCore (magicoreacademy.com) who also offers this "Virtual Field Trip to Disney World" (https://magicorelearning.com/shop/product-line/virtual-field-trips/virtual-field-trip-to-disney-world-google-slides-seesaw https://magicorelearning.com/shop/product-line/virtual-field...) and while they claim to not be affiliated with Disney (who is usually very litigious about any use of their name/characters), they don't say anything like that about Roblox here https://magicorelearning.com/shop/florida-b-e-s-t-standards/authors-opinion-2nd-3rd-florida-best-standards-ela-2-r-2-4-3-r-2-4 https://magicorelearning.com/shop/florida-b-e-s-t-standards/...