Algorithmic Rights and Protections for Children

Essays on the challenges and risks of designing algorithms and platforms for children, with an emphasis on algorithmic justice, learning, and equity.

One in three Internet users worldwide is a child, and what children see and experience online is increasingly shaped by algorithms. Though children’s rights and protections are at the center of debates on digital privacy, safety, and Internet governance, the dominant online platforms have not been constructed with the needs and interests of children in mind. The editors of this volume, Mizuko Ito, Remy Cross, Karthik Dinakar, and Candice Odgers, focus on understanding diverse children’s evolving relationships with algorithms, digital data, and platforms and offer guidance on how stakeholders can shape these relationships in ways that support children’s agency and protect them from harm. 

This book includes essays reporting original research on educational programs in AI relational robots and Scratch programming, on children’s views on digital privacy and artificial intelligence, and on discourses around educational technologies. Shorter opinion pieces add the perspectives of an instructional designer, a social worker, and parents. The contributing social, behavioral, and computer scientists represent perspectives and contexts that span education, commercial tech platforms, and home settings. They analyze problems and offer solutions that elevate the voices and agency of parents and children. Their essays also build on recent research examining how social media, digital games, and learning technologies reflect and reinforce unequal childhoods.

Mizuko Ito is Professor in Residence and John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Chair in Digital Media and Learning at the University of California, Irvine, and Director of the Connected Learning Lab. Remy Cross is Research Manager in the Connected Learning Lab. Karthik Dinakar is research affiliate at the Center of Complex Interventions. Candice Odgers is Professor of Psychological Science at the University of California, Irvine.

Acknowledgments vii
I Perspectives
1 Introduction: Algorithmic Rights and Protections for Children 3
Mizuko Ito, Remy Cross, Karthik Dinakar, and Candice Odgers
2 Algorithmic Literacies: K-12 Realities and Possibilities 15
Michelle Ciccone
3 Co-Constructing Digital Futures: Parents and Children Becoming Thoughtful, Connected, and Critical Users of Digital Technologies 23
W. Ian O'Byrne, Kristen Hawley Turner, Kathleen A. Paciga, and Elizabeth Y. Stevens
4 Parenting and the Algorithm: A Perspective on Parental Controls and Guilt amid Digital Media 35
Maureen Mauk
5 Meet Them Where They Are: Social Work Informed Considerations for Youth Inclusion in AI Violence Prevention Systems 43
Desmond U. Patton, Siva Mathiyazhagan, and Aviv Y. Landau
II Full Papers
6 Designing for Critical Algorithmic Literacies 59
Sayamindu Dasgupta and Benjamin Mako Hill
7 Authenticity and Co-Design: On Responsibly Creating Relational Robots for Children 85
Marion Boulicault, Milo Phillips-Brown, Jacqueline M. Kory-Westlund, Stephanie Nguyen, and Cynthia Breazeal
8 Early Adolescents' Perspectives on Digital Privacy 123
Nicholas D. Santer, Adriana Manago, Allison Starks, and Stephanie M. Reich
9 Humanizing Big Data: Making Sense of How Youth of Color Experience Personalized Educational Technologies 161
Veena Vasudevan
10 The 4 As: Ask, Adapt, Author, Analyze: AI Literacy Framework for Families 193
Stefania Druga, Jason Yip, Michael Preston, and Devin Dillon
11 Do Educational Technologies Have Politics? A Semiotic Analysis of the Discourse of Educational Technologies and Artificial Intelligence in Education 233
Paulo Blikstein and Izidoro Blikstein
Contributors 265
Index 271