Buttle UK
Chances for Children: Grant Criteria
If this page looks like a page you should recommend to a child in crisis or someone supporting one then you might want to think again.
A child in crisis is likely a vulnerable child and no advertising system should know this.
Also, it can come of no good for a social media recommendation system to know either.
The informative video shown is obviously a YouTube embed and this one is tied with Google DoubleClick.
The Deceptive Cookie Banner
Your choice regarding cookies on this site
We use cookies to optimise site functionality and give you the best possible experience.
Appears after sharing the data with YouTube that the child is on the page.
It does not explain to the user that third parties will receive their data for advertising and content recommendation purposes.
As you can see from the screenshot, in the network tab requests have already gone to YouTube with my YouTube account cookie.
The Recommendation to "Watch On YouTube"
YouTube pushes adverts and recommends content based on user interests.
What will YouTube's AI and search engine recommend to the child if they look follow Buttle's recommendation to "Watch On YouTube".
Worse, what will the child risk coming across if they keyword search for their crisis topic in YouTube's search.
Think of crisis situations a child might be in and the kind of content YouTube has
- Poorly vetted ads
- Misinformation from poor sources
- Information not localised to the UK, providing confusion about laws, social norms and what options they have here
- Opinionated viewpoints about being in the crisis, perhaps expressing negativity towards victims or ideas like vengence.
- Fictional content: whether it be dark humour, adult lyrics or horror
Where adults hopefully have the wisdom to navigate the above with caution, can we expect cihldren to tread just as carefully.
Please remember that YouTube is not by default for children and requires parental permission to allow a child to use their site and the embed; something Buttle does not check for and in some crisis situations, may be difficult to obtain.
Facebook too?
When this complaint was first raised with Buttle, their website also included the Facebook Pixel integration, sharing identifiable data with Facebook about the child's usage of the site.
Is it fixed?
No
Raising the complaint
19th January 2023: Complaint raised and a prompt response
Many thanks for sending through your email with your concerns.
We are investigating the issues that you highlight.
The removal of Facebook happened at some point after this, thank you.
YouTube tracking remains.