A coalition of groups spanning public health, privacy, consumer advocacy and more are accusing Facebook of continuing to harvest personal data from teens to target advertising to them and is asking the company to stop what it calls "surveillance advertising" to those youth.

The groups, led by Reset Australia and Fairplay, cited Facebook's July 2021 announcement that it was restricting targeted advertising to teens on Facebook, Messenger and Instagram, but they say an analysis conducted by Fairplay, Global Action Plan UK, and Reset Australia found that the company continued to collect teen data "to fuel its ad delivery system," saying that while advertisers may not be able to target teens, the company's algorithm's can.

In a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the groups said Facebook needs to end the use of AI to optimize the delivery of ads to young people who are most vulnerable to them. "[W]hile Facebook said it will no longer allow advertisers to selectively target teenagers, it appears Facebook itself continues to target teens, only now with the power of AI," the groups told Zuckerberg, citing the analysis.

The groups said that conversion APIs (including Facebook Pixel and SPK), which help optimize ad targeting, are still operational on teen accounts, meaning they can still receive personalized ads based on their interests.

"The replacement of targeting ‘selected by advertisers’ with targeting ‘selected by an AI delivery system’ does not represent a demonstrable improvement for children," the analysis asserts.

"It is extremely disappointing that Facebook appeared to take a legitimate step forward, but it was nothing more than a PR play," said Josh Golin, executive director of Fairplay. "We hope Congress will take note and move quickly to ban surveillance advertising to children and teens, because when it comes to young people's wellbeing, Facebook simply cannot be trusted."

Among the groups signing on to the letter in addition to Fairplay (formerly Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood) and Reset Australia include Consumer Federation of America, Parents Television and Media Council, Center for Digital Democracy, Common Sense, and dozens of others.

“We haven’t seen the report, but it’s wrong to say that because we show data in our transparency tools it’s automatically used for ads," said Facebook spokesman Joe Osborne. "We don’t use data from our advertisers' and partners' websites and apps to personalize ads to people under 18. The reason this information shows up in our transparency tools is because teens visit sites or apps that use our business tools. We want to provide transparency into the data we receive, even if it's not used for ads personalization." 

Kids and teens are consuming more content than ever – about 15.7 hours per week – but surprisingly they are watching on traditional TVs and laptops and not as much on mobile devices, according to a PricewaterhouseCoopers report.

The news should be welcomed by cable operators and programmers who have reeled over the past few days as investors fretted about over-the-top threats.  While OTT is still a concern, at least this as some fuel o the notion that younger viewers haven’t yet totally abandoned traditional TV.

PwC surveyed 500 kids and teens (ranging in age from 8- to 18) and 250 parents to find out their viewing habits as part of their Consumer Intelligence Series.  What the studies found is that kids think they watch less than their parents’ believe — the kids estimated that they spent about 15.5 hours per week viewing video – and they do it on more traditional devices.  

The lowest amount of viewership is with younger kids – about 13.2 hours for 8-11 year-olds, according to parents – but rises quickly as they age. PwC says kids 15-18 years old spend about four more hours per week playing games or watching video than their younger counterparts.

According to the report, 8-18 year olds say they spend more than half of their time watching streamed content on the web, but on average they spend 7.8 hours per week watching live network TV shows and movies, compared to 6.1 hours streaming video on computers, laptops and phones. As they get older, they tend to migrate from their tablets to their cell phones to view content,  PwC says.

About 53% of 8-18 year-olds say streamed television from cable networks is their favorite form of content, with drama or reality series from cable a close second at 47% and video games third at 36%.

Teens also say that they find out about new content primarily through commercials (33%), with 23% saying they watch shows on direct recommendations from friends and family and 18% from social media.

Cable brands also remain some of the most recognizable to the 8-18 age group, with Disney coming out on top with 85% brand recognition, followed by Nickelodeon (83%) and Cartoon Network (80%). Online giant Amazon was tied for third with 80% brand recognition, followed by You Tube (79%) and Netflix (78%).