Consider this warning from the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood:

In July, Mattel will release Aristotle, a Wi-fi enabled "digital nanny." They say the device will help parents nurture and teach their child from infancy to adolescence.

We want parents to know what Mattel will be taking from them in exchange for this "help."


 

Aristotle is an Amazon Echo-type listening and talking device with a camera. To work, it collects and stores data about a child's activity and interactions with it. Because Aristotle connects to other apps and online retailers, that data may be shared with those partner corporations, which may use it for a wide variety of purposes-including targeting the marketing of other products to children and families....

Aristotle is meant to live in a child's bedroom from birth to adolescence, reading bedtime stories, projecting videos, and delivering content from an endless stream of partners selling music, games, and apps. Mattel calls Aristotle a "persona, and something that the child can become comfortable with and feel close to." And if you ask the device, it says that its "purpose in life is to help comfort, entertain, teach, and also learn from you, as we grow together."

In other words, Mattel wants Aristotle to have as much access to kids as possible, and hopes that its perky "kindergarten teacher" voice distracts parents from the uneasy reality that their child's oldest friend isn't a person, but a data-collecting, branded-content-delivering robot.

To Mattel, the right types of emotional ties are ones that lead to profits, not happy and healthy kids. Multinational corporations should not decide what's right for kids' emotions, and young children should not be guinea pigs for AI experiments.  

What can you do?  Sign the petition to stop Aristotle here. Read more about it here. And talk it up with your friends.

Toy companies like Mattel try to project a family-friendly image. They hate it when we expose them as just one more greedy corporation. Spread the word!

Congress still on break - time to talk vouchers/charters

Congress will be home on break until June 5, so you still have time to stop by their home offices or make a local call to tell them that parents' REAL choice is a high-quality school close to home, not Betsy DeVos's push for vouchers or more charter schools.

Too many in Congress fall for the corporate reform line that they are just trying to give parents "choices" when they close our local schools, give away millions of scarce school dollars to mediocre charter operators, and threaten to take even more money away from the public schools with such failed, costly programs as "educational savings accounts" and vouchers. Starving our existing schools will never "improve" them, and only hurts our children.

Please share our fact sheet on ways that vouchers can harm education, and our piece on charters and real parent choice.         

 

Just a reminder that you can watch the excellent webinar on the new Parent Toolkit for Student Data Privacy here. 

PAA-Roanoke Valley leader Laura Bowman moderated the session, which featured PAA co-founder Leonie Haimson, a Toolkit author.

Y ou can download the Toolkit itself here. This is a great resource from the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy and the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood.

Start using it now!