The Instituto Alana, through its Criança e Consumo program, filed a complaint against Facebook Serviços Online do Brasil Ltda (Meta) with the São Paulo State Public Prosecutor’s Office (MPSP) on June 17. Subsequently, on June 28, Alana also submitted the complaint to the Ministry of Justice and Public Security (MJSP), intensifying efforts for appropriate accountability within the relevant departments. Monitoring conducted by the organization identified ten child influencers promoting gambling sites to children and adolescents.

These young influencers, aged between 6 and 17, hail from the states of Alagoas, Ceará, Paraíba, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo. Through Instagram stories, they advertise online gambling platforms. The complaint to Meta focused on Instagram, the platform most used (36%) by children and adolescents aged 9 to 17, according to the Tic Kids Online 2023 survey.

Details of the Complaint

The complaint to the MPSP aimed to hold advertisers and Meta accountable for the commercial exploitation of children and adolescents. “Despite the minimum age to create a profile on the platform being 13, many younger children are present. This raises significant concerns, as they are consuming and sometimes even producing content inappropriate for their age group,” says Maria Mello, coordinator of Criança e Consumo.

The document emphasizes that advertisements targeting children and adolescents should be considered abusive, as children are “individuals deemed hyper-vulnerable and more susceptible to being misled, lacking the same mental capacity for resistance and understanding of reality as adults.” The complaint also highlights that early exposure to such content can contribute to the development of risky behaviors and gambling addiction, compromising the well-being and future of young people.

According to Mello, “exposure to online gambling advertisements can cause irreversible harm, especially during childhood and adolescence, critical phases of human development.”

“The increase in addiction cases, often accompanied by tragic reports of lives lost due to financial losses, underscores the urgency of protecting children and adolescents from relentless gambling advertising.” – Maria Mello, Child and Consumerism Coordinator

Exploitation of Child Labor in Entertainment

The complaint not only details the practices of young influencers promoting gambling platforms but also highlights the role of advertisers in the exposed illegal activities, as they exploit the vulnerability and naivety of young individuals to expand their customer base. Both the children and adolescents promoting online gambling platforms, with the prospect of financial rewards to support themselves or their families, and their young audiences receiving these advertisements, suffer commercial exploitation by advertising companies, as their vulnerabilities are exploited for economic and commercial interests.

The platforms not only allow but also encourage the participation of children and adolescents in gambling by offering bonuses and promotions that attract them to this environment. The lack of effective measures by authorities to act against these practices allows them to continue freely, harming the well-being and healthy development of young people and exposing them to a range of risks without any protection.

Risks of Encouraging Gambling Among Children and Adolescents

• Improper data collection
• Exposure to problematic behaviors of compulsive gamblers
• Exposure to harassing conduct by adults present on the platform
• Exploitation by individuals seeking to use the innocence of children and adolescents to facilitate illegal gambling activities
• Development of risky behaviors and gambling addictions

Additionally, the creation of a distorted perception of easy gains present in advertisements by young influencers can contribute to the normalization and acceptance of gambling as a recreational and profitable activity, which should not be promoted to children and adolescents. Therefore, the complaint points out that advertising of these services must adhere to extremely strict ethical and regulatory standards and be subject to rigorous evaluation and oversight by regulatory agency.

Platform’s Complicity in Disseminated Content

“Meta failed twice: by exposing children and adolescents to harmful content that encourages addictions, and by not protecting young digital influencers. When working on the platform, they need to ensure a permit that shields them from this type of activity,” says Mello. The complaint also highlights the discrepancy between the company’s practices and platform guidelines, as well as the rules of the National Council for Advertising Self-Regulation (Conar) for gambling advertisements, which expressly prohibit children and adolescents from being the target audience of advertising in this sector.

Although Instagram offers resources for users to report posts that violate its terms of use, it is still not possible to find a way to report gambling advertisements. “The frustrating attempts to report this content reveal that the same platform benefiting from abusive commercial exploitation practices does not make equivalent efforts to provide adequate measures to protect the youngest from illegal and harmful content,” points out the Child and Consumerism Coordinator.

Protecting children and adolescents from practices that commercially exploit them is of utmost importance, both in the work developed by young influencers and in the content disseminated to their audiences. The work of these children and adolescents must be regulated and supervised, adopting practices such as limiting working hours, implementing protection mechanisms on the digital platform used, and establishing contracts that always respect and guarantee their best interests.

Click here to access the complaint (images and other information that could identify the children have been removed to ensure their privacy)