Algorithms and fake news
Who’s choosing the next video your child watches? The tech companies. Their behavioural science experts are working closely with their engineers to keep kids watching, and most are trusting what they see.
Your children are being targeted
Mediacom's Connected Kids report 2019
Mintel’s Make It Mine trend report argues that “this generation, as digital natives, are the most used to, and therefore the least unnerved by services and advertising being personalised to them. As such, trust is higher…”
Some stats from this report:
72% of teens use YouTube daily
6 to 18-year-olds are twice as likely to trust algorithms to select stories compared to human editors
(Edelman Trust Barometer – 2017)
“I use YouTube every day for about 6 hours average. When it comes to finding the types of channels I subscribe to I usually find them on my recommended on YT”
Boy, 14, North West
“I love watching YouTube clips, usually on my own. I start by looking at the ‘recommended’ section and take it from there...”
Girl, 13, East of England
Watch this conversation between Tristan Harris and Yuval Noah Harari about auto play algorithms and more. You can read the transcript on Wired – When Tech Knows You Better Than You Know Yourself.
It includes these words from Tristan Harris, the man known as ‘the conscience of Silicon Valley.’
“70% of what people watch on YouTube is driven by recommendations from the algorithm… which means 70% of 1.9 billion users… about the number of followers of Christianity… for 60 minutes a day – that’s the average time people spend on YouTube. So you’ve got 60 minutes, and 70% is populated by a computer. The machine is out of control.”
Of course the same applies to Tiktok and so on.
It’s worth watching the whole video for their thoughts on the illusion of human choice and the reality of hacking human choice, the power of those who have the data, the importance of getting to know yourself better, the power of joining an organisation, the concept of humane technology, the utility of teaching ethics as part of coding, how tech is maximising isolation, the asymmetry of the power of AI vs the individual and what a responsible, global solution might look like.
Children & Parents: Media Use & Attitudes Report 2022
According to this 2022 report by Ofcom
Critical understanding of fake vs real online:
“The majority of 12-17s were confident that they could tell what is real and fake online, but only 11% correctly selected, in an interactive survey question showing a social media post, the components of the post which reflected that it was genuine.”