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The Almighty Buck Businesses Social Networks The Internet

Social Media Companies Made $11 Billion In US Ad Revenue From Minors, Study Finds (apnews.com) 26

Posted by BeauHD from the would-you-look-at-that dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: Social media companies collectively made over $11 billion in U.S. advertising revenue from minors last year, according to a study from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health published on Wednesday. The researchers say the findings show a need for government regulation of social media since the companies that stand to make money from children who use their platforms have failed to meaningfully self-regulate. They note such regulations, as well as greater transparency from tech companies, could help alleviate harms to youth mental health and curtail potentially harmful advertising practices that target children and adolescents.

To come up with the revenue figure, the researchers estimated the number of users under 18 on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter) and YouTube in 2022 based on population data from the U.S. Census and survey data from Common Sense Media and Pew Research. They then used data from research firm eMarketer, now called Insider Intelligence, and Qustodio, a parental control app, to estimate each platform's U.S. ad revenue in 2022 and the time children spent per day on each platform. After that, the researchers said they built a simulation model using the data to estimate how much ad revenue the platforms earned from minors in the U.S. The platforms themselves don't make public how much money they earn from minors. [...]

According to the Harvard study, YouTube derived the greatest ad revenue from users 12 and under ($959.1 million), followed by Instagram ($801.1 million) and Facebook ($137.2 million). Instagram, meanwhile, derived the greatest ad revenue from users aged 13-17 ($4 billion), followed by TikTok ($2 billion) and YouTube ($1.2 billion). The researchers also estimate that Snapchat derived the greatest share of its overall 2022 ad revenue from users under 18 (41%), followed by TikTok (35%), YouTube (27%), and Instagram (16%). "As concerns about youth mental health grow, more and more policymakers are trying to introduce legislation to curtail social media platform practices that may drive depression, anxiety, and disordered eating in young people," said senior author Bryn Austin, professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences. "Although social media platforms may claim that they can self-regulate their practices to reduce the harms to young people, they have yet to do so, and our study suggests they have overwhelming financial incentives to continue to delay taking meaningful steps to protect children."
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Social Media Companies Made $11 Billion In US Ad Revenue From Minors, Study Finds More

Social Media Companies Made $11 Billion In US Ad Revenue From Minors, Study Finds

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  • Does the simulation have ad-block (Score:3)

    by m00sh ( 2538182 ) on Friday December 29, 2023 @05:08PM (#64115615)

    Does the simulation have ad-block?

    To come up with the revenue figure, the researchers estimated the number of users under 18 on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter) and YouTube in 2022 based on population data from the U.S. Census and survey data from Common Sense Media and Pew Research. They then used data from research firm eMarketer ... to estimate each platform's U.S. ad revenue in 2022 and the time children spent per day on each platform. After that, the researchers said they built a simulation model using the data to estimate how much ad revenue the platforms earned from minors in the U.S.

  • Cartoon Time (Score:3)

    by neoRUR ( 674398 ) on Friday December 29, 2023 @05:24PM (#64115641)

    So showing ads during kids cartoons on TV should be regulated because they are making money also? The whole idea of Saturday Morning Cartoons was to sell kids things.

    • They are in Canada. We invented a whole new job - children's show host - to fill in the extra time left over for when we show kids American shows but don't allow all the American ads that normally come with them.

      As for the shows themselves... yeah, they're basically toy ads that get around that. The Japanese have it down to an art, though. Those card game-based shows are ridiculous.

      • We invented a whole new job - children's show host

        Really? You invented the Children's Show Host job? Really?

      • Filling time to replace American Commercials isn't actually 'regulating' the commercials - the word you wanted was 'replace' the 'host' replaced the excised commercials to fill in the show.

        Serious question, how did you see American children's shows - don't they lack the mandatory Canadian Content?

    • They are regulated, but in a different way. It's a weird double-standard, to be sure. I think the real issue is that these social media ads are not transparent and the FCC has no teeth to enforce any complaints due to excessive lobbying by these big tech companies.

      • Still calling them "tech" companies seems odd when they are actually "AD" companies. Be nice if we could change that lingo.

    • I don't know about your country, but there are very specific and very strict rules governing what can and what cannot be shown during "kids TV times" (read: programming obviously targeted at people under the age of 13), and there are also VERY strict rules concerning commercials around these times (with the threat of losing your fucking broadcasting license if you are found guilty of violating them).

  • Or sales? Because if it's the former, they didn't "make it from minors". They got it from the retailers and manufacturers who paid for the views. If nobody bought their shit, they made nothing from minors.

    • Yes, thank you. They made revenue from advertising TO minors. And that's a problem, because... I guess it means that minors are using their services? But we already knew that. I'm a little lost here.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by PPH ( 736903 )

        They made revenue from advertising TO minors.

        But they made it FROM whom?

        According to this [wikipedia.org] ad revenue is that which social media companies or individuals who create and post content. Paid by the advertisers wishing to have their ads seen. So far, not one kid (or parent of) appears to have contributed one cent to the process. Of course, ads generate sales. But I'm not certain that this $11 billion figure represents that. It's what Slashdot Media earns from putting those stupid banner ads at the bottom of each page.

  • Well... that they do is the problem. So...

  • This is now ancient news. Why does the media still do this. It should be just X. Or are we going to do it forever like "love symbol" formerly known as Prince?
  • South Park special, Not Suitable for Children [wikipedia.org]:

    Suggests the platforms deliberately target kids with porn in order to cynically increase views.

  • How much did all the other companies make off kids?

  • That kids, under 18 years-old, are not only on the internet, but are also USING SOCIAL MEDIA! Mon Dieu!

  • In the 80s, 90s and 2000s the children's channels made way more than that off of advertising directly to minors. How is this wrong when that was OK? And don't tell me about tracking and personal data shit, nobody under the age of 23 cares about that, and it's the parent's responsibility to keep track of what their children are doing, so it's on them that their little shits are on the internet getting tracked by all these sights that forbid anyone under 13 from joining.
  • Compare to Apple revenue of about 400 billion/year. That one company vs an entire industry

    • Compare to Apple revenue of about 400 billion/year. That one company vs an entire industry

      Sure, but Apple is a global company. This is about ad sales in the US.

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