As part of a long-term community engaged research partnership between faculty and students in the Department of Communication at UMass and Deerfield Elementary School around media literacy education, Communication PhD students created lesson plans about how data is collected online and used to send internet users targeted ads. This year, two PhD students who are leaders in the media literacy program, Cecilia Zhou and Michelle Ciccone, and Professor Erica Scharrer decided, in conversation with the 6th grade teachers at DES, to focus on a timely and important topic: the ways in which internet users' data are collected and used to target them with personalized ads online. As part of the teaching on this topic, the group introduced the current COPPA (Children's Online Privacy Protection Act) legislation as well as the proposed changes under COPPA 2.0 which is currently a focus of Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey.
A Zoom call with Senator Markey on April 8 gave the 6th graders the unique opportunity to learn more about these policies, ask questions, and share their experiences, concerns, and opinions. The elementary school students had already been examining the ways in which internet users' data are collected and used to target them with personalized ads online and the conversation with Sen. Markey helped the students understand how it all works and facilitate their thinking about the ethics involved in these processes. Senator Markey said that the COPPA 2.0 bill calls for parents/caregivers to be able to erase their children's data that have been collected online. He said that the reason we need the new law is for this: to know whether companies have kids' information or not and to give families control over that.When asked“what if people want personalized content” he said that it's important to know that COPPA 2.0 won't get rid of all ads online, explaining that contextual ads—those that are placed on webpages based on their relevance to that webpage—will still be allowed for internet users of all ages. What will not be allowed are targeted or personalized ads, the ones that use our data—such as age and location—to send us ads based on those data.
Sen. Markey also said that every new invention can be cool and great but also needs safeguards. When the car was invented, he said, it would not have been allowed without brakes or other safety features. He said the internet is the same: it needs safeguards and that's why he is working on the COPPA 2.0.
The Communication PhD students will study the discussions that take place in the classes and the 6th graders responses to written prompts and activities to write research papers on what this group of students think and know about the topic and the program advances their critical thinking.