5Rights' pernicious playthings

Ideally, toys should be simple trinkets that we're happy to leave our children to play with, unsupervised.

However, as this lo-fi but high-concept campaign for children’s rights group 5Rights goes to show, mistaking connected devices and online services for harmless curios can have devastating effects.

Through a series of enjoyably kitsch commercials, all created in-house by the 5Rights team, that demonstrate the damage with a cheeky wink, Twisted Toys presents the horrors as seemingly harmless, before the rug-pull of how we would find this unacceptable if genuine.

The Twisted Toys each represent a different aspect of the exploitation, surveillance and danger that children face online. 

• Stalkie Talkie is the classic hand-held toy which uses child-friendly algorithms to match kids with adult strangers. Just press the button and wait for billions of random people to find you!
• Share Bear is the cuddly companion who just loves to share: he wants to know every data point from your favourite colour to your sexual preferences, as long as it can be sold for profit!
• Wakey Wakey: this night light keeps you updated on everything you don’t need to know 247: it’s designed to perpetuate cycles of sleep deprivation and over-stimulation.
• My First T&C’s: essential reading for any child, just set aside 250 hours (the average time required to read T&Cs) [source] and you can sign your life away.
• Mystery Friends is a whole new sticker collection for the digital age. Who can tell what you’re gonna get? A new best friend? Or a pesky predator? 
• Fishing For Likes makes popularity competitions easier to judge than ever, and all you have to do to win is distort your self-worth! It’s compulsive, obsessive, destructive fun for the whole community.
• The Eye-Con 3000 is the eyeball tracking, retina scanning, handheld device kids just can’t put down. As big tech becomes ever-thirstier for more data, military-grade surveillance tech will become common in our kids’ hands.