This is unbelievable. The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, having spent 15 years working with the Judge Baker Children’s Center, is being kicked out because Disney leaned on them for being called out on their bullshit baby einstein videos.
It is chilling that any corporation, particularly one marketing itself as family friendly, would lean on a children’s mental health center. We have great admiration for the Center’s staff, and the work they do for children. At the same time, we are deeply saddened that the institution ceded its ground and stopped supporting CCFC and our efforts to challenge powerful interests in order to protect children and support parents.
(see also The New York Times
The JBCC claims that it
promotes the best possible mental health of children through the integration of research, intervention, training and advocacy.
In 2006, the CCFC filed an FTC complaint against Disney, using a pile of scientific evidence to force Disney to stop making claims that Baby Einstein videos had educational value. They pushed to require Disney to offer refunds for the videos, and won.
This quote from the NYT nicely sums up how fucked this is:
But Dr. Carl Bell, president and chief executive of the Community Mental Health Council in Chicago, when alerted by a reporter, said he was troubled because advocacy was a core responsibility of the 1963 legislation that provided federal financing for community mental-health centers.
"Children are all gasoline and no brakes," Dr. Bell said, "and whether it’s cigarettes, alcohol or junk food, we need advocates to tell society to stop giving children so much gasoline."
