YouTube earned $959 mln on showing ads to children last year

According to a recent study published by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the total number of advertising earnings from minors social media companies collected in the United States last year was more than $11 billion.

To calculate this figure, researchers estimated the users under 18 on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, X, and YouTube in 2022 using U.S. Census data and surveys from Common Sense Media and Pew Research. Data from research firms eMarketer, now Insider Intelligence, and a parental control app Qustodio were utilized to estimate the U.S. advertising revenue for each platform in 2022. The daily time spent by children on each platform was also studied.

As for users aged 13-17, Instagram led in ad revenue with $4 billion, followed by TikTok ($2 billion) and YouTube ($1.2 billion).

The researchers also calculated that Snapchat secured the largest portion of its total ad revenue in 2022 from users under 18 (41%), with TikTok coming next at 35%, followed by YouTube at 27%, and Instagram at 16%.

Notably, these platforms do not publicly disclose the specific revenue earned from minors. YouTube has gained significant popularity among young children, surpassing other major streaming services like Netflix in their preferences.

"Although social media platforms may claim that they can self-regulate their practices to reduce the harms to young people, they have yet to do so, and our study suggests they have overwhelming financial incentives to continue to delay taking meaningful steps to protect children," says Bryn Austin, a senior author on the study, commenting on potential harm to youth mental health.

We also wrote that YouTube began deploying an initiative to counter ad-blockers on its platform worldwide and it has plans to strengthen the protection of teenagers by restricting the re-recommendation of videos that may be harmful to children.