6 ms·

What about adverts on YouTube and TikTok and other online platforms? I doubt kids/teenagers watch much TV at all these days.

xxs 2y ago
"This government is taking action now to end the targeting of junk food ads at kids, across both TV and online.", it's a quote from the article, it's very likely they'd ban ads targeted at children.
- chgs 2y ago
  I expect a lot of pushback from the new u.s administration about any online regulations.
  - xxs 2y ago
    The regulation would apply to the UK. UK brands and goods sold in the UK, by established/registered companies the UK. Not possible to sell any retail goods of the sorts w/o a registration in the UK, so stopping them advertising won't be hard. I don't think US administration would be able to do anything, much like GDPR.
    - chgs 2y ago
      Tarrifs and other threats
    - spacebanana7 2y ago
      What about Mr Beast video sponsored by McDonalds (for the sake of specificity, a new McMuffin available in every country on earth)? > I don't think US administration would be able to do anything, much like GDPR. We live in a different world to the mid-late 2010s. For better or worse, I'm fairly confident Musk and Zuckerberg will have input on US trade policy on these issues.
      - ben_w 2y ago
        > For better or worse, I'm fairly confident Musk and Zuckerberg will have input on US trade policy on these issues. Input, yes. May even be able to get the US to threaten a trade war or to leave NATO if they can't rake in the advertising dollars. But I think the former would be seen as Trump being Trump and the latter as a bluff, and in both cases it would be reason to more permanently disentangle the UK economy from the US economy and defence relationship than to dry away the crocodile tears of multibillonaires.
        spacebanana7 2y ago
        The US has more leverage over the UK then perhaps any other country. Largely because of the shared political culture. They could throw hand grenades into British politics by declassifying embarrassing events involving British soldiers in Iraq, investigating tax issues with labour party donors (many of whom conduct business in the US) or recognising Northern Ireland as part of the Republic of Ireland. Attacking the British economy would be a political mistake, because a well advised politician would use it as a scapegoat for any economic problem in the UK. Similar with defence - e.g the withdrawal of intelligence cooperation could allow a terrorist attack to be blamed on Trump rather than MI5/MI6 funding stress.
        ben_w 2y ago
        Seems plausible, though I still think the US threatening to do that, let alone actually doing that, is more likely to cause a separation between the US and UK than to be taken seriously (in the sense of getting the UK to change course). The UK did just go through having Boris Johnson as Prime Minister, after all, who spent his time in office demonstrating that being completely shameless is a viable solution to almost all blackmail — he only fell when there were photos of him partying in the same period he was on TV telling people they couldn't do that or visit dying relatives because COVID lockdown, everything else wrong was basically ignored.
      - xxs 2y ago
        McDonalds is likely to be responsible for the contents in that regard I'd presume (esp since they do own the trademark). This is what I meant by corporations registered in the UK. In a similar vein gambling content targeted at kids would have a similar approach. Keep in mind the businesses still need to be able to sell in the UK.
- anotheracc88 2y ago
  For Youtube often the content is an ad too. Will Google need to stop serving huge swaths of content to the UK at certain times? Hope so!
  - dartos 2y ago
    I got news for you. Kids entertainment has almost always been ads. Disney movies are marketing for toys. Same with TV shows and cartoons.
  - xxs 2y ago
    >content to the UK at certain times? Hope so! We have no idea how/where it'd end up (with). If I understand anything about regulations (which is doubtful of course), the advertisers, themselves, would be on the hook.
- pkaye 2y ago
  According to this link Food and Beverage ads are already prohibited on YouTube kids. I don't know if this is a US specific policy but I presume its similar elsewhere. https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6168681?hl=en#zippy=%2Cfood-and-beverages https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6168681?hl=en#zipp...
crowcroft 2y ago
It baffles me that more countries haven't put legislation in place to severely limit what ads can be served to under 18 year olds (or at least under 16). I worked in an ad agency a number of years ago, and Phillip Morris approached us with a deliberate plan to launch big budget ad campaigns on social media platforms specifically because they could get in front of younger demos more easily (traditional media having existing regulations in my country). The original idea was to build a large database of prospects to sell direct to even after regulation eventually cracks down on them. Amazingly no regulation has come yet, and Meta has done little to no self-regulation. You can blame parents, but even then one under appreciated problem with digital ads is the lack of shared experience. With TV advertising, you know what your kid is seeing, everyone can see a verify what ad ran at what time on what channel etc. If a parent and a kid are scrolling social media their experience is entirely different, and you can't go back and see what someone else has seen.
- EasyMark 2y ago
  Probably because being tracked across all platforms is a bad idea in a democractic/liberal type of country, and not worth the "think of the children" argument. At some point parents have to take some responsibility.
  - crowcroft 2y ago
    First, I’m not sure being tracked across all platforms is actually a requirement here. On device age verification and device attestation and/or simply assuming anonymous users are under 18 from an ad safety perspective would allow a level of anonymity across platforms. It might also help solve a large chunk of ad fraud. Second, I think you really need strong evidence to say that the upside you’re asserting is truly worth sacrificing kids safety.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    > At some point parents have to take some responsibility By voting for the party that promises to enforce bans against it? There's more than one way to be responsible, and it's not good to be a "helicopter parent" even if you have enough free time to actually pair-browse the internet with your kid, and even if you did that doesn't stop them seeing inappropriate content or ads it just means there's a witness who knows they saw inappropriate content or ads.
bko 2y ago
If your child watches a lot of YouTube, or any at all really, you should really invest in YouTube premium. It's incredible how much people use YouTube but because there is a free option, few bother to fork over $14 a month to remove ads, especially when it vastly improves the experience for your children. In a case like this I think the obvious solution is self-regulation.
veunes 2y ago
Indeed. The problem is, regulating online ads is much trickier

xxs 2y ago

"This government is taking action now to end the targeting of junk food ads at kids, across both TV and online.", it's a quote from the article, it's very likely they'd ban ads targeted at children.

chgs 2y ago
I expect a lot of pushback from the new u.s administration about any online regulations.
- xxs 2y ago
  The regulation would apply to the UK. UK brands and goods sold in the UK, by established/registered companies the UK. Not possible to sell any retail goods of the sorts w/o a registration in the UK, so stopping them advertising won't be hard. I don't think US administration would be able to do anything, much like GDPR.
  - chgs 2y ago
    Tarrifs and other threats
  - spacebanana7 2y ago
    What about Mr Beast video sponsored by McDonalds (for the sake of specificity, a new McMuffin available in every country on earth)? > I don't think US administration would be able to do anything, much like GDPR. We live in a different world to the mid-late 2010s. For better or worse, I'm fairly confident Musk and Zuckerberg will have input on US trade policy on these issues.
    - ben_w 2y ago
      > For better or worse, I'm fairly confident Musk and Zuckerberg will have input on US trade policy on these issues. Input, yes. May even be able to get the US to threaten a trade war or to leave NATO if they can't rake in the advertising dollars. But I think the former would be seen as Trump being Trump and the latter as a bluff, and in both cases it would be reason to more permanently disentangle the UK economy from the US economy and defence relationship than to dry away the crocodile tears of multibillonaires.
      - spacebanana7 2y ago
        The US has more leverage over the UK then perhaps any other country. Largely because of the shared political culture. They could throw hand grenades into British politics by declassifying embarrassing events involving British soldiers in Iraq, investigating tax issues with labour party donors (many of whom conduct business in the US) or recognising Northern Ireland as part of the Republic of Ireland. Attacking the British economy would be a political mistake, because a well advised politician would use it as a scapegoat for any economic problem in the UK. Similar with defence - e.g the withdrawal of intelligence cooperation could allow a terrorist attack to be blamed on Trump rather than MI5/MI6 funding stress.
        ben_w 2y ago
        Seems plausible, though I still think the US threatening to do that, let alone actually doing that, is more likely to cause a separation between the US and UK than to be taken seriously (in the sense of getting the UK to change course). The UK did just go through having Boris Johnson as Prime Minister, after all, who spent his time in office demonstrating that being completely shameless is a viable solution to almost all blackmail — he only fell when there were photos of him partying in the same period he was on TV telling people they couldn't do that or visit dying relatives because COVID lockdown, everything else wrong was basically ignored.
    - xxs 2y ago
      McDonalds is likely to be responsible for the contents in that regard I'd presume (esp since they do own the trademark). This is what I meant by corporations registered in the UK. In a similar vein gambling content targeted at kids would have a similar approach. Keep in mind the businesses still need to be able to sell in the UK.
anotheracc88 2y ago
For Youtube often the content is an ad too. Will Google need to stop serving huge swaths of content to the UK at certain times? Hope so!
- dartos 2y ago
  I got news for you. Kids entertainment has almost always been ads. Disney movies are marketing for toys. Same with TV shows and cartoons.
- xxs 2y ago
  >content to the UK at certain times? Hope so! We have no idea how/where it'd end up (with). If I understand anything about regulations (which is doubtful of course), the advertisers, themselves, would be on the hook.
pkaye 2y ago
According to this link Food and Beverage ads are already prohibited on YouTube kids. I don't know if this is a US specific policy but I presume its similar elsewhere. https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6168681?hl=en#zippy=%2Cfood-and-beverages https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6168681?hl=en#zipp...

crowcroft 2y ago

It baffles me that more countries haven't put legislation in place to severely limit what ads can be served to under 18 year olds (or at least under 16). I worked in an ad agency a number of years ago, and Phillip Morris approached us with a deliberate plan to launch big budget ad campaigns on social media platforms specifically because they could get in front of younger demos more easily (traditional media having existing regulations in my country). The original idea was to build a large database of prospects to sell direct to even after regulation eventually cracks down on them. Amazingly no regulation has come yet, and Meta has done little to no self-regulation. You can blame parents, but even then one under appreciated problem with digital ads is the lack of shared experience. With TV advertising, you know what your kid is seeing, everyone can see a verify what ad ran at what time on what channel etc. If a parent and a kid are scrolling social media their experience is entirely different, and you can't go back and see what someone else has seen.

EasyMark 2y ago
Probably because being tracked across all platforms is a bad idea in a democractic/liberal type of country, and not worth the "think of the children" argument. At some point parents have to take some responsibility.
- crowcroft 2y ago
  First, I’m not sure being tracked across all platforms is actually a requirement here. On device age verification and device attestation and/or simply assuming anonymous users are under 18 from an ad safety perspective would allow a level of anonymity across platforms. It might also help solve a large chunk of ad fraud. Second, I think you really need strong evidence to say that the upside you’re asserting is truly worth sacrificing kids safety.
- ben_w 2y ago
  > At some point parents have to take some responsibility By voting for the party that promises to enforce bans against it? There's more than one way to be responsible, and it's not good to be a "helicopter parent" even if you have enough free time to actually pair-browse the internet with your kid, and even if you did that doesn't stop them seeing inappropriate content or ads it just means there's a witness who knows they saw inappropriate content or ads.

bko 2y ago

If your child watches a lot of YouTube, or any at all really, you should really invest in YouTube premium. It's incredible how much people use YouTube but because there is a free option, few bother to fork over $14 a month to remove ads, especially when it vastly improves the experience for your children. In a case like this I think the obvious solution is self-regulation.

veunes 2y ago

Indeed. The problem is, regulating online ads is much trickier