A Yle investigation found WhatsApp recommends children's public channels to adult strangers, and some kids post their school hours, locations and phone numbers.
WhatsApp is recommending channels run by children to adults who do not know them, according to an investigation by Finnish broadcaster Yle. Channels are a WhatsApp feature for posting updates to followers. Yle found hundreds run by ordinary Finnish children, many sharing dance videos, selfies and details of daily life.
More than 50 of the channels had an administrator under 13, even though WhatsApp's minimum age is 13. Yle set up a test profile for a 35-year-old man who had used the app for over a decade. One in five channels recommended to him was run by a child under 13. One in three was run by a minor. Most administrators were girls.
Most of what children post is innocent. Some of it is not. One 12-year-old shared her phone number while looking for a boyfriend. An 11-year-old ran a "therapy" channel offering advice on eating disorders and suicidal thoughts.
Many children think a channel is limited to their followers. It is not. A WhatsApp channel is always public. Anyone can browse it if it shows up in their recommendations or if they get the link.
That makes small details add up. One girl posted which riding school she attends on Tuesdays and the time. Another posted a selfie from her walk to school and wrote her school hours. Yle's team worked out where the church in the background stood. Some children gave full names and exact birthdates.
Inka Kiuru of Save the Children Finland said not every child will meet grooming or bullying, but the risk is always there. She added that children struggle to tell public from private.
Followers cannot see an administrator's name or phone number unless the administrator shares them. WhatsApp also does not appear to recommend channels with fewer than 100 followers, based on Yle's analysis. Children who have no channel are not part of this issue.
Small channels are not fully safe, though. Children pass links to each other, and Yle found several channels with fewer than ten followers that way. One channel run by three 11-year-olds reached 3,600 users in a month with only 156 followers.
The alert box above lists the steps. The short version is to find out whether your child has a channel and to review it together.
Meta, which owns WhatsApp, did not answer Yle's question about why it steers users to children's channels. It said it recently added new management tools for parents of teenagers aged 13 to 18. Those tools do not cover younger children. Yle's findings concern Finland, and the material does not say whether Meta will change how channels are recommended.
A WhatsApp channel is public, so check whether your child has one and what it reveals about their name, school and whereabouts.
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