• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, December 27, 2023

Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter), and YouTube collectively generated about $11 billion in U.S. advertising revenue from minors through ads last year, according to a study from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health published on Wednesday.

The researchers suggest the findings show a need for government to step in and regulate social media, since companies that stand to make money from children using their platforms have failed to self-regulate.

"Government efforts to update protections for children and adolescents have largely failed, facing substantial resistance from industry, and our findings underscore the financial incentive for platforms to oppose government efforts to protect youth," per the study. 

This study estimated the number of U.S.-based child and adolescent users and the annual advertising revenue generated across the six major platforms.

The population data was obtained from U.S. Census and the survey data from Common Sense Media and Pew Research. The researchers then combined their data with figures from Insider Intelligence and Qustodio, a parental control app, to estimate each platform’s U.S. ad revenue in 2022, then added the time that children spent per day on each platform. 

The platforms do not make the revenue earned from minors public, but the Harvard report estimated the most advertising revenue profits from children 12 and under came from YouTube -- at $959.1 million, followed by Instagram with $801.1 million and Facebook with $137.2 million. 

Among those age 13 to 17, Instagram generated the most estimated advertising revenue at $4 billion, followed by TikTok at $2 billion and YouTube at $1.2 billion.

On Snapchat, 41.4% of overall advertising revenue in 2022 is estimated to come from those 17 and under, followed by 35% on TikTok, 27% on YouTube, and 16% on Instagram.

The revenue from those under 18 years is comparatively low for Facebook and Twitter, where the estimated percent of total annual advertising revenue generated from users 17 and under is 1.9% and 2.0%, respectively, according to the report.