WhiteHat Jr has become one of the most mysterious cases after being criticized for bashing videos and posts on social media and taking them down suspiciously. The company has been advertising that a child can begin to learn coding from WhiteHat Jr Company at the age of 6 which is something questionable.
Parents are somewhat in favor of this new application whereas a lot of them have been strongly opposing this. A 12-year-old YouTuber who posted a video bashing the claims made by WhiteHat Jr was also removed. The video hardly had 15-20 views. Now the question that arises here is was the video so threatening that a young 12-year-old could have damaged the company’s reputation.
What is WhiteHat Jr?
WhiteHat Jr is a tech startup company established by Karan Bajaj back in 2018. It’s an EdTech company that provides online courses for kids aging 6 and above. The courses offered here are coding and application designing. Byju’s took possession of this company within 18 months of its establishment for $300 million.
What Happens When Byju’s Takes Over?
Byju’s has already established its name in the industry a couple of years ago. Now that it has taken over WhiteHat Jr, it started making multiple ads that have created a lot of controversies that state that, “it’s just for fun.” Many have raised their voice against it not just for roasting but creating an impact on a child’s mind for being money minded at a very young age. If speculations are to be believed Forbes India has reported “the curious case of disappearing dissent.”
What’s The Issue?
There are a lot of people who have been upset about this entire controversy related to WhiteHat Jr. The company is accused of allegedly removing posts where people have been raising their voices for what has been wrong.
Jihan Haria’s Case
Jihan is a 12-year-old young YouTuber who doesn’t even have a total of 1000 subscribers on his channel. He posted a video during the lockdown under the niche of Advertisement roasting the only mistake he made over here is to choose WhiteHat Jr for Coding. to be roasted. The ad states that people have been fighting over business proposals for a 6-year-old child who has developed an application on its own at a very young age. Within a few hours of Jihan posting this video, his video was taken down under the claims of copyright violations.
Later, it was noticed that his entire channel was taken down. The copyright claim seemed quite as vague in this case. Whereas it is believed that the video by a kid would have barely tried to threaten the company’s reputation. A lawyer has stated that the Copyright Act expects to reuse the videos for purposes like review and commentary.
In response to the Forbes questionnaire, a representative from WhiteHat Jr representative stated,
“The right of deleting a social media post lies with the platform, no private organization has it, and so the question of silencing dissent doesn’t arise. We have highlighted certain videos to respective platforms where inappropriate (read abusive) language was used. The final call on the video to be deleted is taken by the platform.”
The company hasn’t acknowledged the issue related to their marketing strategy, they have talked about how social media platform moderates its content.
This issue has taken a toll since it highlights the concerns related to the regulation of moderation of social media platforms to keep content transparency as the priority.
Accused of Compelling a School Kid to Attend Competitor’s Trial Class
Tekie a kids coding platform that is also a competitor of WhiteHat Jr has accused the rival of using unethical tactics to incorporate Tekie’s model of teaching. The Tekie Co-Founder quoted on social media,
WhitHat Jr. has certainly faced the wrath of parents and people all over for strategizing wrongly and influencing a child’s mindset. It’s not just the general public but even members have been taking advantage of how foolishly the WhiteHat Jr Coding Company Ad is doing round in the market. Here are a couple of tweets and snapshots of the same:
Now Is it a Curse or a Boon?
WhiteHat Jr. claims to empower and boost a child’s confidence at a very young age. They encourage kids to learn about logic, structure, sequence, and algorithm to generate creative outcomes like applications and animation apps.
Now, this sounds quite fascinating for a kid who is growing up in this tech-savvy era, where you are idolized based on how “tech-savvy” you are, but as much as it claims to make a child understand the logic and technicalities of a system or software, it somehow hinders its organic growth. Let’s discuss both advantages and disadvantages of WhiteHat Jr.
Advantages of Taking Up WhiteHat Jr.
Makes the Child Confident
Coding is something that is not a usual niche to learn about for a child, it makes a child a little more curious about understanding. If you watch keenly, kids are always motivated to bring change and talk about what could they do to make it better. The things that they have learned with the new age technology, are something they can create themselves. When they come to know about the certain opportunity of putting their ideas into action it makes them all the more confident about the knowledge they possess.
Better Career Opportunity
If the kid is well versed in technology and software, WhiteHat Jr Company opens a range of opportunities for them. WhiteHat Jr Coding enhances their skills in problem-solving, mathematics, storytelling, and design. Children tend to understand coding faster with Whitehat jr and as much as they have learned they can teach their friends as well. Now they aspire to be the leaders of tomorrow. As we have witnessed that the world is growing digital with every passing day, and the job market calls for technology experts. WhiteHat Jr Company teaches the kids for the future to get a better job opportunities in near future.
Improves Concentration
The entire learning process becomes so fascinating for kids that they observe everything very keenly. Not only do these courses encourage students to learn something new but also make them understand to learn with utmost patience and concentration.
Comparative Dis-Advantages of Taking Up WhiteHat Jr./ Coding at an Early Age
Lack of Basic Skills
At an age when a child should know the basics time is taken away from learning mathematics and coding. Do you think that the child has time left to learn their native language or learn how the world works without technology as well? The child tends to become dependent on the gadgets for everything that needs to be done, which makes him lack important skills to be learned at that age. They become introverted and lose interest in human interaction which makes them lack fundamental skills.
Excessive Use of Gadgets
The most argued matter in this case is that the parents have faced issues when the kid has made excessive use of screens. Now they are moreover concerned about harming the child’s vision and they believe that the kids should not spend a long time being sedentary. It not only just makes their lives monotonous at a very young age but also reduces kids taking part in outdoor activities and making human interactions like making new friends.
Now, these two advantages have overpowered the mindsets of parents people across the globe. Majorly people are not willing to take up any coding courses for their kids at a very young age, as they believe they will lose their childhood. There are a couple of arguments made where people have bashed WhiteHat Jr. but there are people who are highly in favor of it.
Now the question that arises here is whether it is a curse or a boon. The argument is endless, and the difference of opinion varies from person to person. The majority of them are against the idea of making kids learn coding at a very young age, but since we are rapidly growing in this tech-savvy world it turns out that this has become a required skill. Where a 22-year-old is encouraged to play games a 6-year-old on the contrary is encouraged to learn to code, now that’s where they turned the tables. Now where the 22-year-old should think it through with a money mindset, here we are encouraging a 6-year-old to make 150 cr. Sounds weird! But that’s true.
The advertising agencies play it very smart to influence a mind. We tend to do things that fascinate it, no matter what the outcome is. The problem that arises here is to think through whether or not should we take up. I would leave this discussion open-ended to let you choose what works in your favour and what doesn’t.
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