The Federal Trade Commission means business when it comes to regulating Instagram advertisements.

The consumer rights advocacy group Public Citizen recently complained celebrities weren’t being upfront about which of their posts were sponsored. So, the FTC responded by reviewing the photos and sending warning letters to more than 90 Instagram users. The commission has discussed its standards for advertising on social media before, but has not directly confronted the celebrities named in complaints until now.

Public Citizen wasn’t alone in its push to make sponsored content more transparent—this past summer, the nonprofit Truth in Advertising filed a complaint against the Kardashian family for “deceptive marketing.” Though the FTC won’t name which celebrities received the letters, Public Citizen also included the Kardashians in its petition, in addition to well-known Instagrammers like Rihanna, Michael Phelps, Chris Pratt, Jennifer Lopez, Lindsay Lohan, Lebron James, Drake, Mark Wahlberg, and Blake Lively.

The 113 photos Public Citizen referenced in its complaint usually show the celebrities using a product from the brand that has paid them, with an accompanying caption endorsing it. Products range from makeup and hair care from companies like L’Oreal to athletic gear from Nike and Adidas to snacks from Lay’s and Dunkin’ Donuts.

According to a release on the FTC’s website:

The FTC’s Endorsement Guides provide that if there is a ‘material connection’ between an endorser and an advertiser – in other words, a connection that might affect the weight or credibility that consumers give the endorsement – that connection should be clearly and conspicuously disclosed, unless it is already clear from the context of the communication. A material connection could be a business or family relationship, monetary payment, or the gift of a free product. Importantly, the Endorsement Guides apply to both marketers and endorsers.

The release adds that Instagrammers should be clear that their post is an ad within the first three lines of the photo caption, and should avoid writing too many hashtags that could bury disclaimers. The use of hashtags and captions like “#sp” (short for “sponsored”), “Thanks [Brand],” or “partner” do not directly communicate that the post is sponsored and can confuse followers, the FTC says.

In its Endorsement Guides, the FTC writes that ads should be “honest and not misleading”—and consumers should know when they’re reading an endorsement that has been paid-for, because it can affect the way they “[evaluate] the endorser’s glowing recommendation.”

This doesn’t mean your favorite actors, athletes and reality stars are headed to court or getting banned from Instagram anytime soon. Often, it’s the sponsor behind the post that ends up taking the heat for its sneaky ad campaigns. In July, Warner Bros. settled charges that it failed to disclose information about paying “influencers,” like Youtube star PewDiePie, to recommend one of its video games. In March, the department store Lord & Taylor settled charges over its failure to inform consumers that it had sent popular Instagram users free clothing in exchange for promotion of one of its clothing lines.

Victoria Sheridan

Victoria is an editorial intern at Law Street. She is a senior journalism major and French minor at George Washington University. She’s also an editor at GW’s student newspaper, The Hatchet. In her free time, she is either traveling or planning her next trip abroad. Contact Victoria at VSheridan@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post The FTC Isn’t Kidding About Instagram Ads appeared first on Law Street.

Have you ever scrolled though your Instagram feed and stopped on an image of one of the Kardashian/Jenner sisters (yes, it’s ok to admit that you follow one, if not all of them) posing with some new fit tea, hair pill, or waist trainer? Was the photo perhaps missing a clearly visible sponsored content label?

Chances are your answers to both of these questions are yes, which is why the famous celebrity clan has been warned that if they don’t remedy their deceptive advertising practices in a week, a formal complaint will be filed with the FTC.

Even the government is no fan of the Kardashians’ detox tea ads on Instagram https://t.co/YAqyvFxO1s pic.twitter.com/ydRfwxMeaM

— Her Campus (@HerCampus) August 7, 2016

On August 17, Truth in Advertising.org sent the family’s matriarch/mom-ager, Kris Jenner, and 27 companies–including Puma, Calvin Klein, JetSmarter, Fit Tea, LuMee, and Balmain–a letter notifying them about the deceptive marketing campaigns. The nonprofit reviewed accounts for Kim, Khloe, Kourtney, Kylie, and Kendall, and found “a plethora of posts that do not clearly or conspicuously disclose their relationships with the companies being promoted in the posts as is required by federal law.”

TINA.org writes:

We intend to notify the Federal Trade Commission that these individuals and companies are engaged in deceptive marketing campaigns unless, by August 24, 2016, the issues described above are fully corrected by clearly and conspicuously disclosing that all applicable posts – past, present, and future – are paid advertisements or the result of material connections between the Kardashian/Jenner individuals and the companies featured in the posts.

Read TINA.org’s letter to the Kardashian-Jenner family here.

The sisters, who have a combined Instagram following of more than 316 million, reportedly make an upwards of $300,000 per sponsored post. According to TINA.org, youngest sister Kylie had the most problem posts, followed by Kim. Also, Puma, with which Kylie has an endorsement deal, lead all companies in improperly marked paid content with 13 posts.

While the girls have occasionally used tags such as #sp and #spon to mark their sponsored posts, the FTC told Bloomberg the subtle disclaimer isn’t enough. Using the hashtag #ad is okay, but only if it’s at the beginning of a post.

Since receiving the letter, the Kardashian-Jenners have already begun retroactively amending posts to contain #ad at the end. However,  since the number of impressions garnered on a post significantly decreases after the initial posting, this remedy may be a waste of time. On August 24 it will be interesting to see if TINA.org is satisfied with changes, or if the group decides to move forward with filing an official FTC complaint.

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Truth in Advertising Org Threatens to Report Kardashian/Jenner Family to FTC appeared first on Law Street.

Sponsored Content

According to UNICEF, 140 million children around the globe have lost one or both parents. These children are classified as “orphans.” While there are many reasons that children can become orphans, it is a global problem that affects a wide range of nations. Read on for a spotlight on some of the particular nations and regions that have the most orphans, and what is being done to help those children in need.

Sub-Saharan Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa is home to many orphans. Although sub-Saharan Africa is a large region, its nations share some of the same problems. The onset of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa began in the 1970s, and continued at high levels in the 1980s. In addition to HIV/AIDS, other diseases such as malaria and TB, and war and conflict in some states have left some 52 million of sub-Saharan Africa’s children without one or both parents.

In 2015 in sub-Saharan Africa, it was estimated by UNICEF that about 11 percent of children under 18 were orphans. Many of those children became orphans as a result of the HIV/AIDS crisis in the region. According to Nancy E. Lindborg, assistant administrator for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance at USAID, 15 million children in sub-Saharan Africa have lost their parents specifically to the disease in 2014. However, as frequent as it is that children are orphaned because their parents die of HIV/AIDS, there are also other factors that leave them in non-parental care. For instance, high poverty rates can lead to the abandonment of children, particularly in rural areas or if the parents are migrant workers and unable to take their children to different locations with ease. Other diseases, such as malaria, can also play a role. While sub-Saharan Africa is a huge region and not all the issues faced by one country would be faced by another, these are common threads that many sub-Saharan nations experience.

Spotlight: Ethiopia 

Ethiopia, located in the horn of Africa, has a population of more than 90 million people. According to UNICEF, over four million of that population is made up of orphaned children. Just under one million are children who have been orphaned as a result of HIV/AIDS.

Addressing those health concerns is paramount to stopping the rising orphan levels in Ethiopia. Health care should be provided to ill parents to prevent mother to child transmission and to ensure that they can care for their children as long as possible. Children should benefit from access to quality health care, especially if they are HIV positive themselves.

A focus on community and capacity building ensures that healthcare facilities will be functioning institutions now and in the future. Healthcare professionals need to be trained within the country, and healthcare centers need to be available in villages and local communities. Recently, there has been a focus on a cycle of health care that can sustain itself. As Worldwide Orphans, the first group to bring HIV/AIDS drugs to orphans in Ethiopia, explained about its process:

Doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals needed to be trained and mentored by experts in the treatment and ongoing care of children with HIV/AIDS. And so, WWO recruited an extraordinary team of pediatric AIDS specialists from Columbia University to work side by side with in-country professionals, examine and test each child, decide upon treatment, and consult on follow-up care. Seminars were held, with all materials translated into the country’s language. As a result, more than 400 healthcare professionals have been trained and taken their learning back to villages, towns, and cities across their countries.

This kind of community building can also be applied to education and development activities.

Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe’s experience at the end of the twentieth century was characterized by war, turmoil, and poverty. Even Eastern European nations that had rather advanced and progressive social services practices–such as the former Yugoslavia–were devastated by the infighting after the breakup of the Soviet Union and forced to revert back to a reliance on orphanages. As those institutions were often underfunded, overcrowded, and lacking appropriate resources, they didn’t help children to grow and thrive. While many Eastern European countries are moving toward shutting down these institutions, there is still much work to be done to ensure that children in these nations receive adequate support.

Spotlight: Bulgaria 

Bulgaria’s orphan population is high, at an estimated 94,000 in 2009. While the vast majority of these children are “social orphans,” meaning their parents are alive but unable to care for them or have abandoned them, they still require the same support and resources as children who have lost one or both parents.

For a long time, Bulgaria’s many orphans were kept in orphanages, which by their nature often are only able to provide a few staff members to care for large groups of children. For young children, this can be particularly damaging, as they don’t get the attention and nurture that they need. Studies show that for every three months in institutionalized care, infants and toddlers lose about one month of developmental growth. As a result of these concerns about orphanages, Bulgaria announced in 2010 that it would be moving toward de-institutionalization. The country hopes to close all orphanages by 2025. The Bulgarian government is looking to implement a model similar to what we see in the United States, where the focus is on placing children in foster families, kinship care, or small group homes. Dr. Jane Aronson, founder of Worldwide Orphans, described this process in 2011:

They have already done the first level of developmental screening of the most complex children and now they will go deeper into the psycho-social and family issues of these children. Their goals are reuniting the children with their families, closing large institutions, group home assignments and foster care.

This strategic plan will then be used for the orphanages for healthy children.

Many orphans in Bulgaria, and other parts of Eastern Europe, are Roma. Traditionally the Roma, or Romani people, have been oppressed and discriminated against throughout Europe. Due to that cycle, many Roma children become “social orphans” and are left in institutions. Recent estimates indicate that approximately 60-80 percent of children in orphanages are from the Roma minority who represent only four percent of the Bulgarian population. In addition, a 2011 study by the Helsinki Committee found that up to 50 percent of Bulgaria’s orphans are of Roma descent. Empowering this community and providing educational resources to these vulnerable children will help break the cycle of poverty and abandonment.

Latin America and the Caribbean

The country facing a large-scale orphan crisis in the Caribbean and Latin America is Haiti, particularly in light of the devastating earthquake that happened in January 2010. Nevertheless, there are a significant number of orphans in the region. While UNICEF reports 340,000 orphans in Haiti alone, there are many others in the region who have their own unique obstacles to overcome. UNICEF in 2013 put the number in the region at just over 8.4 million.

Spotlight: Haiti

Most estimates prior to the 2010 earthquake, including those from Worldwide Orphans, put the number of orphans in Haiti at over 400,000. While those numbers are now around 340,000, Haiti sees many of the issues similar to those in Ethiopia and Bulgaria, including intergenerational poverty and HIV/AIDS infection. UNICEF estimates the number of children orphaned in Haiti due specifically to HIV/AIDS at 100,000.

Due to the 2010 earthquake and the subsequent destruction of significant portions of the infrastructure, addressing the orphan issue effectively and efficiently in Haiti has been very challenging. Furthermore, even before the disaster, educational opportunities and jobs were hard to come by. Providing orphaned young people with skills and opportunity will help them to be resilient, by extension improve their communities, and hopefully break the intergenerational cycle of poverty. As Worldwide Orphans explains about its “Haitians Helping Haitians” program,

The youth training model has been replicated in a hospital in Port-au-Prince, where young adults are trained to work with babies and infants who have been abandoned at the hospital. This model provides them with much needed income, job skills and a chance to build self-esteem and positively contribute to their own community. Whether playing with infants and toddlers in the WWO Toy Library, or serving up arts and crafts, nature, performing arts, life skills, education, teambuilding activities at camp and in after-school programming, WWO’s youth corps of trainees are not only providing valuable enrichment to children suffering from chronic disease and the emotional scars of abandonment, they are building their own skills in child development which will serve them in future employment and in their own journeys into parenthood.

By providing children with resources to help themselves and their communities, Haiti will be better positioned to rebuild a nation that is still feeling the effects of such a devastating natural disaster.

Conclusion

Currently there are 140 million orphans worldwide. Most orphans are “social orphans” and likely have identifiable families–if there is the social infrastructure to find them. Unfortunately, in developing nations, there are so many orphans and very limited financial resources to reintegrate and reunite families.  Nations like Ethiopia, Bulgaria, and Haiti each demonstrate how issues of poverty, disease and conflict impact children in different cultures. However, it is important to remember that these problems are not necessarily unique. Virtually all across the world, children lose parents to disease (HIV, Malaria, etc) conflict and war, poverty, natural disasters and experience trauma that impacts their development. There’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all approach to preventing orphaning. Instead, a combination of approaches, including early intervention, community capacity building, de-institutionalization, establishment of group homes and foster care, and other critical psychosocial support programming, like the work that Worldwide Orphans undertakes, needs to be implemented to ensure that every child grows up safe, independent, and healthy.

Resources

Primary

UNICEF: Ethiopia

UNICEF: Bulgaria

UNICEF: Haiti

UNICEF: State of the World’s Children 2015

Additional

Food, Nutrition and Agriculture: Orphans and the Impact of HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa 

Borgen Magazine: House Subcommittee Discusses African Orphans

Worldwide Orphans: Ethiopia

Worldwide Orphans: Capacity/Community Building

Medwire: Bulgaria Special Report: Children Continue to be Neglected Due to ‘False Reforms’

NIH: Neurodevelopmental Effects of Early Deprivation in Post-Institutionalized Children

Worldwide Orphans: Bulgaria 

Huffington Post: Bulgaria: Changing Orphans’ Lives

EU Business: Abandoned Roma Children Fill Europe’s Orphanages

Children and Youth in History: UNICEF Data on Orphans by Region

Worldwide Orphans: Haiti

SOS Children’s Villages: Children’s Statistics

Worldwide Orphans

Worldwide Orphans is dedicated to transforming the lives of orphaned children to help them become healthy, independent, productive members of their communities and the world, by addressing their physical and mental health, education, and ability to achieve. WWO was founded in 1997 by Dr. Jane Aronson, who has dedicated her life to working with children. Worldwide Orphans is a partner of Law Street Creative. The opinions expressed in this author’s articles do not necessarily reflect the views of Law Street.

http://www.wwo.org

The post State of the World’s Orphans appeared first on Law Street.

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According to UNICEF, there are 153 million children across the globe who are defined as orphans. These children, and others, are at risk for poverty, health concerns, neglect, and abuse. They are the world’s orphans. Read on to learn about how children can become orphans, what it means to be an orphan, and how underlying social problems lead to children being orphaned.

No Easy Definition

The definition of an orphan is not just a child who has lost both parents–instead, many international bodies recognize as orphans children who have lost one or both parents. Moreover, orphans aren’t necessarily children who are in need of homes. Many orphans live with grandparents, aunts or uncles, or other family members.

The expansive definition was created out of a desire to recognize that a child who does not have one or both parents may be vulnerable in some way, whether that is a lack of support, resources, or opportunity. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) explains the move to the broader definition of orphan as follows:

This definition contrasts with concepts of orphan in many industrialized countries, where a child must have lost both parents to qualify as an orphan. UNICEF and numerous international organizations adopted the broader definition of orphan in the mid-1990s as the AIDS pandemic began leading to the death of millions of parents worldwide, leaving an ever increasing number of children growing up without one or more parents. So the terminology of a ‘single orphan’ – the loss of one parent – and a ‘double orphan’ – the loss of both parents – was born to convey this growing crisis.

There are also many children whose parents may be alive, but live far away or are otherwise unable to care for their children. Overall, the global definition of orphan as followed by many aid and advocacy organizations focuses on aiding children who lack in support, protection, and/or caregiving.

How do children become orphaned?

There are countless ways that children can lose one or both parents, or be put in a position where they don’t have support. It’s almost impossible to make a full list, but some of the most pressing and prevalent include children in refugee camps from war and conflict, poverty or abandonment, family turmoil, or social isolation. Each of these problems comes with its own challenges and requires unique resources and approaches, and many orphans can face more than one of these challenges.

Refugee Camps, War, and Conflict

There are a few different ways that children can end up in refugee camps. The two most common are natural disasters and conflicts that force children and families from their homes. Often those disasters or conflicts kill one or both of a child’s parents, or leads to the child being separated from them. Internationally, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), approximately half of the world’s refugees in 2013 were under the age of 18. That proportion is borne out by statistics of people living in refugee camps, as children also amount to half of the overall refugee population in camp-type accommodations.

Children in refugee camps face unique challenges. Malnutrition is prevalent in refugee camps, particularly among very young children. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) found that in South Sudanese refugee camps in Ethiopia, malnutrition rates for children under the age of five ranged from approximately 25-30 percent.

Refugee camps are also fertile ground for preventable diseases, both because of the crowding that occurs at camps, as well as a lack of access to hygiene materials or proper sanitation. Take the camps set up in Syria in light of the recent civil conflict there, for example. Those Syrian camps are seeing cases of measles and even polio.

Refugee camps create an obviously unusual environment for a child to grow up in. Institutions that provide support and education for children, such as schools, are not necessarily found in refugee camps. For refugees who are constantly on the move, children may not have the ability to work with one school or one teacher consistently enough to build strong educational skills, and schools may be open only once a week for certain age groups.

Children who are refugees, whether in camps or in less structured situations, also have to become the breadwinners for themselves, and possibly for younger children in their families as well. This leads to an influx of child labor. In Syria, UNICEF estimates that one in ten of the refugee children there are engaging in labor in an attempt to support themselves.

While there are many difficulties that children, particularly those who have lost one or both parents, in refugee camps have to contend with, these are some of the most prevalent.

Poverty

Many children who are at risk and are considered “orphans” grow up under conditions of extreme poverty. Poverty is often cyclical–a child born into poverty may lose his parent to illness or a number of other causes. Then, he doesn’t have the resources to provide for himself and will likely fall victim to malnutrition and illness, and will not be able to pursue an education. Subsequent children are then born into poverty as well, and the cycle continues.

Poverty can also lead to “social orphans.” Those are children who haven’t necessarily lost one or both parents, but whose parents can’t take care of them. According to Worldwide Orphans CEO & President Dr. Jane Aronson, children in institutions such as orphanages in Bulgaria are mostly those who do have surviving parents; only two percent are “full orphans”–meaning both parents are deceased. It’s difficult to estimate how many children are social orphans, but in some nations the problem is clearly profound. For example, UNICEF estimates that 70 percent of Moldova’s children in residential care are social orphans.

HIV/AIDS Crisis

With the rise of the HIV/AIDs crisis, more and more children are orphaned every day. In addition, many children who become orphans because of HIV/AIDS are stigmatized in their communities because they may also suffer from the disease. According to UNICEF, 17.9 million children have become orphans because one or both parents died from AIDS. Most are located in Africa, although there are other nations worldwide that have been hit particularly hard by the AIDS crisis.

Children whose parents have HIV/AIDS may be affected well before their parent passes away, as the sickness may make it difficult to adequately carry out caregiving responsibilities. A situation like this can lead to children becoming the de facto head of their household, dropping out of school, and engaging in labor that could become risky–such as commercial agriculture or sex work.

Studies have shown that children whose parents die of HIV/AIDS suffer higher rates of psychological stress than children who are orphaned in other situations. A Swedish study from Lund University conducted in rural Uganda found that “12 percent of children orphaned by AIDS affirmed that they wished they were dead, compared to three percent of other children interviewed.”

Part of this stress may come from the fact that in many places, HIV/AIDS is still deeply feared and stigmatized. Children whose parents have died of HIV/AIDS may be turned away from schools or other public places out of fear that they also have the disease, and a fundamental misunderstanding of how HIV/AIDS is spread.

In addition, children who have HIV/AIDS are victims of discrimination and abandonment as well, leading to orphan status. Dr. Aronson explains the challenges that children with HIV/AIDS face in nations such as Ethiopia:

The task of reuniting orphans living with HIV with their family was daunting from so many angles. These children were abandoned because of their HIV status and to have their families take them back into their hearts is a gargantuan achievement. Learning a new way of thinking is one of the hardest challenges for all human beings… and this step is breathtaking. Just go back to the 1980s and 90s in the U.S. when Ryan White, an American boy with HIV, wasn’t allowed to go to school; when hospital staff donned spacesuits to serve meals to patients with HIV; and when people feared friends with HIV/AIDS. And finally all over the world, disclosure of HIV status takes years of hard work and rarely seems to occur.

What issues do orphans face?

When children are vulnerable, there are many concerning fates that can befall them. The most prevalent include conscription into forces as child soldiers, child trafficking, child prostitution, and early marriage. These challenges are not mutually exclusive, and in some cases more than one can be present in a vulnerable child’s life.

Child Soldiers

UNICEF estimates that 300,000 children are involved in armed conflict worldwide. These include children who are involved with both state and non-state actors. A child soldier is defined by the organization Plan as “anyone under the age of 18 who is part of any kind of regular or irregular armed force or armed group in any capacity.” Children don’t just act as combatants, but also provide support to armies or groups as messengers, through work in camps, or they are used for forced sexual services. There are a number of reasons why children may take on these roles; they may be forcibly recruited or join because of poverty or abuse. They may turn to the armed group as a way to provide an income or because of societal pressures. Children in vulnerable situations–including those who are without their families or homes–are more likely to become child combatants.

Child Trafficking and Child Prostitution 

Vulnerable children may fall victim to human trafficking. Human trafficking is defined by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) as “the recruitment, transport, transfer, harbouring or receipt of a person by such means as threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud or deception for the purpose of exploitation.” According to a 2014 UNODC report, children now make up one third of all trafficking victims worldwide. Those numbers do vary by region: in Africa and the Middle East children make up 62 percent of trafficking victims; in the Americas they account for 31 percent; in South Asia, East Asia, and the Pacific children are 36 percent of trafficking victims; and in Europe and Central Asia they are 18 percent of those trafficked. The most common reasons why children may be trafficked include sexual exploitation, forced labor, warfare, and organ removal.

Child prostitution can occur after a child is trafficked, or in a child’s home country, and it is defined by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR) as “the use of a child in sexual activities for remuneration or any other form of consideration.” The exact number of children who have been sexually exploited is difficult to quantify, but UNICEF puts the number at approximately two million.

Child Marriage

Another concern for vulnerable children, particularly young girls, is the risk of early marriage, which can include when a child is forced to marry before the age of 18, or when she is cohabiting, but not necessarily married, before that age. According to UNICEF, one in four women between the ages of 20-24 was married before she was 18. The highest rates are in South Asia, where UNICEF reports that nearly 50 percent of all women were married before the age of 18, and more than 15 percent were married before 15. This issue doesn’t just affect girls, however. Certain nations see a high rate of child marriage for boys as well–in the Central African Republic 28 percent of men ages 20-24 were married before 18. Madagascar, Laos, Honduras, Nauru, the Marshall Islands, Nepal, and Comoros also all see rates of child marriage for young boys above ten percent.

Conclusion

The status of orphans across the world is caused by a daunting mix of many endemic issues–war, natural disasters, abandonment, poverty, disease, and social stigma, among many others. Given that even the definition of an “orphan” is difficult to pinpoint, it’s clear that no two orphaned children’s stories could ever be the same. That being said, one goal rings true for all those trying to help these vulnerable children–the ability to provide them with support, education, love, and protection.

Resources

Primary

WWO: Dr. Aronson’s Journals

WWO: Our Mission

UNICEF: Orphans

UNHCR: Statistical Yearbook 2013: Demographic and Location Data

UNHCR: Are Refugee Camps Good for Children? 

UNICEF: Factsheet: Child Soldiers

UNODC: Human Trafficking FAQs

UNODC: 2014 Global Report on Trafficking in Persons

UNICEF: Child Marriage

Additional

Huffington Post: Reunifying Ethiopian HIV Orphans with Extended Family

SOS Children’s Villages: Children’s Statistics

World Vision: War in Syria, Children, and the Refugee Crisis

Telegraph: Thousands of Syrian Children Left to Survive Alone, Says UN

RNW: Orphaned by Poverty, But Not Orphans

AVERT: Children Orphaned by HIV and AIDS

Worldwide Orphans

Worldwide Orphans is dedicated to transforming the lives of orphaned children to help them become healthy, independent, productive members of their communities and the world, by addressing their physical and mental health, education, and ability to achieve. WWO was founded in 1997 by Dr. Jane Aronson, who has dedicated her life to working with children. Worldwide Orphans is a partner of Law Street Creative. The opinions expressed in this author’s articles do not necessarily reflect the views of Law Street.

http://www.wwo.org

The post Defining Orphans: The World’s Most Vulnerable Children appeared first on Law Street.

Earlier today, I was fortunate enough to watch and listen to a webinar hosted by the Chief Strategy Officer of Mashable.com, Adam Ostrow. The webinar, hosted at the American Association of Publishers, focused on how Mashable has been so successful, so quickly, in the online media field, and Ostrow’s insights were incredibly enlightening.

Mashable has been around for less than 10 years–it was launched in 2005 by a young Scottish man named Pete Cashmore. It began as a classic low-funded start-up. Its employees worked virtually, and given time differences between the U.S. and the U.K. were able to present content almost 24/7. Now, Mashable is well recognized as a force to be reckoned with in the online arena. According to Ostrow’s presentation today, some sort of Mashable content is now shared an average of three times per second.

Ostrow’s focus today was to explain how they got there–what sort of ingenuity and creative thinking was required to turn Mashable into such a viral phenomenon. A lot of it involved Mashable’s ability to utilize the digital culture that is becoming increasingly pervasive in American society, especially among young people. As Ostrow put it:

It's 2014, "#digital culture IS mainstream culture" @mashable @adamostrow @PSP_at_AAP

— Law Street (@LawStreetMedia) October 10, 2014

He’s absolutely right–we are more connected than we ever were before. We work, socialize, and interact constantly through our smart phones and social networks–why shouldn’t we get our news and other desired content the exact same way?

That’s exactly what Mashable thought too, and it’s worked. In 2014, roughly 50 percent of their users have accessed the site through mobile technology. On another interesting note, 50 percent also get to the site through some sort of social media platform. While those numbers are not necessarily mutually exclusive, they are telling. As a millennial, they’re almost directly representative of how I got a large chunk of my news–scrolling through my Twitter feed on my phone.

That brings us to another important part of Ostrow’s presentation–Mashable got into the market by taking advantage of changes in the media world, but they also realized they would be remiss to not stay abreast of changes that continue to happen. Ostrow highlighted a few–things like smartwatches are starting to become legitimate considerations, for example. One thing that really struck me was the fact that Mashable has a a position entitled “Dedicated Snapchat Storyteller.” That’s incredible, given that Snapchat was just released in 2011. So much of today’s society moves so quickly–our media sites are smart to jump on trends and incorporate them into their business models.

So Mashable is very successful, to be sure…but how do they make their money? That was another part of Ostrow’s presentation, and like Mashable in general, their money-making strategy was something that we probably wouldn’t have even known about just a short time ago. It’s called native advertising, or sponsored content, and it’s a model that is becoming increasingly popular on the web. There are a few different ways to do it, but essentially what it means is that a particular advertiser provides content that fits into the context of the site, in the form of blogs or articles, or some other platform. In the case of Mashable, some of their sponsored content partners include American Express, Staples, and Gap, among others. Like the rest of what Mashable is doing, sponsored content is smart because it tailors itself to what we, as millennials want. Smart content with context appeals way more to us than print ads, or even classic advertisements.

Overall, it was an incredibly interesting presentation–if you’re looking for more coverage, make sure to check out the Law Street Media Twitter feed. Mashable’s innovation is impressive, and their insights equally so.

—

Anneliese Mahoney (@AMahoney8672) is Lead Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

Featured image courtesy of [Mike Coghlan via Flickr]

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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