Leaked Documents Reveal Facebook is Targeting Children as Young as 6 (nbcnews.com) 84
"Internal documents show that Facebook has been actively hiring employees to build products that target children as young as 6 to expand its user base," reports NBC News — apparently within just the last six months.
"Our company is making a major investment..." begins an internal Facebook blog post seen by NBC. The blog post announces that the company was dedicating a team "to make safer, more private, experiences for youth..." It goes on to point out this marked a new direction for Facebook, since "For many of our products, we historically haven't designed for under 13."
Further down the post adds that "Our work prioritizes the best interests of the child..." Diagrams illustrate proposed new target age groups, ranging from kids 6 to 9 years old and tweens 10 to 12 years old — along with existing targets of early teens from 13 to 15 years old, late teens from 16 to 17 years old, and adults... Critics of the company say these documents are part of a long-standing pattern of Facebook attempting to attract younger users as early as possible.
"Facebook and Instagram have repeatedly shown that they simply can't be trusted when it comes to the well-being of children and teens," said James Steyer, the founder and CEO of Common Sense Media, a nonprofit organization that researches the relationship between children and the digital world. "They need to focus on cleaning up their existing platforms instead of trying to hook more children to their addictive platforms at younger and younger ages...."
The post came just one week before a coalition of 35 organizations and 64 individual experts, coordinated by Fairplay, formerly known as the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, a Boston-based nonprofit, raised concerns about privacy, screen time, mental health, self-esteem and commercial pressure in a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
"These documents make clear that instead of working to make its existing platforms less harmful to teens, Facebook's priority was to ensnare younger children and create a pipeline of lifetime users of Facebook products," Fairplay's executive director Josh Golin told NBC News. "Despite Facebook's claims that their motivation for Instagram for Kids is to create a safer experience for preteens, it's clear the real reason is Facebook is fixated on kids to drive growth. Facebook products aren't safe for younger children, and a company that consistently puts profits ahead of young people's well-being has no business building platforms for kids."
"Our company is making a major investment..." begins an internal Facebook blog post seen by NBC. The blog post announces that the company was dedicating a team "to make safer, more private, experiences for youth..." It goes on to point out this marked a new direction for Facebook, since "For many of our products, we historically haven't designed for under 13."
Further down the post adds that "Our work prioritizes the best interests of the child..." Diagrams illustrate proposed new target age groups, ranging from kids 6 to 9 years old and tweens 10 to 12 years old — along with existing targets of early teens from 13 to 15 years old, late teens from 16 to 17 years old, and adults... Critics of the company say these documents are part of a long-standing pattern of Facebook attempting to attract younger users as early as possible.
"Facebook and Instagram have repeatedly shown that they simply can't be trusted when it comes to the well-being of children and teens," said James Steyer, the founder and CEO of Common Sense Media, a nonprofit organization that researches the relationship between children and the digital world. "They need to focus on cleaning up their existing platforms instead of trying to hook more children to their addictive platforms at younger and younger ages...."
The post came just one week before a coalition of 35 organizations and 64 individual experts, coordinated by Fairplay, formerly known as the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, a Boston-based nonprofit, raised concerns about privacy, screen time, mental health, self-esteem and commercial pressure in a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
"These documents make clear that instead of working to make its existing platforms less harmful to teens, Facebook's priority was to ensnare younger children and create a pipeline of lifetime users of Facebook products," Fairplay's executive director Josh Golin told NBC News. "Despite Facebook's claims that their motivation for Instagram for Kids is to create a safer experience for preteens, it's clear the real reason is Facebook is fixated on kids to drive growth. Facebook products aren't safe for younger children, and a company that consistently puts profits ahead of young people's well-being has no business building platforms for kids."
mmm yeah, prioritizing well being (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, Im old and cynical. Get off my lawn.
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> and we might see something done about it, oh, sometime around 2032
Technically 2033 and later. The first of the 6 year old won't turn 18 until 2033.
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"Will last right up until they get the data showing that lolita-themed kids content sells LOTS of ads"
Don't forget the manolito-themed kid content.
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Hey, whichever sells more adds..
dunno what an "add" is - given its spelt "ad"vertising...
Re:mmm yeah, prioritizing well being (Score:4, Insightful)
When people are added to the network?
Joe camel is back baby (Score:2)
They are selling hits of endorphins . You hook them early and they'll never stop. We're wired that way and self control is no match for evolution .
Saturday morning cartoons (Score:2)
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Na, once the short sellers get back to digging up dirt on Elon Musk, these FB stories are gonna dry up and be forgotten.
Piper Chat (Score:2)
oh Lordy, another "save the children" whiner. (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not here to say anything nice about Facebook. That would be silly.
Nonetheless, "the enemy of my enemy is not my friend". This guy sounds like the usual self-promoting hyper-righteous scuzzbag looking to make some rep and hot profit on the "more decent than thou" circuit.
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Thinks of cigarettes, get them while they are young, duffus.
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"I'm not here to say anything nice about Facebook. That would be silly."
"I come to bury Facebook, not to praise it"
Marc Anthony
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Normally that "save the children" call is often tied to misinformation as well. Such as Stranger Danger, and Razor blades in candy apples, and children are told to go to an adult they trust, like a Parent. While most children are not harmed by the Stranger, however most are harmed by a Trusted Adult, such as their Parents, or prominent adults in their lives Like a Boy Scout Leader, Coach, Teacher, Priest, and many of these people were backed up by large institutions and public support, that makes these p
That's okay (Score:1, Flamebait)
The Democrats are targeting kids in preschool with gender craziness and race consciousness.
By the time Facebook gets them, they won't need any radicalization to make them into nutters.
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That one actually is racist, at least when it's posed as a race-related failure. But welfare is consumed overwhelmingly by white people in the midwest and the south, so when someone says that black people are inferior because they're on welfare, it's double-racist.
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Funny thing, while the kids here in the US are trying to figure out their gender, other countries like China and Russia are training the next generation to be leaders, solders, and winners. You can whine on Facebook how you block people who don't echo you 100%, but while people fight over the piece of the pie, they don't realize the entire pie is getting smaller and smaller, and had they focused on creating more of the pie by not bashing each other, they might not have to try to pay a $3000/month rent paym
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The Democrats are targeting kids in preschool with gender craziness and race consciousness.
By the time Facebook gets them, they won't need any radicalization to make them into nutters.
Yeah it'll be a horrible world if kids don't grow up to be racist sexist fucks like the adults. Can you imagine a world without RightwingNutjobs? Well... no I don't suppose you specifically could.
Don't hate the player, hate the game. (Score:2)
They're just trying to get into that sick, sick Thottok/Trashtube money.
The next Joe Camel? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: The next Joe Camel? (Score:3)
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Sony and microsoft seems to have a complete aversion to games for actual kids.
It's like they're annoying teens that prefer to get irrelevant to the next generation than doing what hollywood does and cater for all ages.
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Candy Cigarettes with red tips. (Score:3)
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I remember chewing gum made to look like cigarettes, each piece was wrapped in cigarette-like colors and shape, and the whole pack came in a strikingly-similar cigarette pack looking wrap.
Here's an example: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Chewi... [amazon.co.uk]
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Kids want to do what the people they admire in their lives do. Tobacco and candy companies certainly hold some responsibility, but maybe parents and adults in general should take a look at the examples they're setting, too.
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I was more reminded of a speech of Hitler how they got the kids early in various organizations, ending in "and they won't be free again for the rest of their life".
But even the Nazis waited 'til the kids were 10.
As easy as taking free will from a baby (Score:4, Interesting)
The ability to frame reality and sensitise kids to drive 'desirable' behaviours will almost certainly be abused at some point. The seemingly increasing trend of corporations and state entities ambitions to influence formation of children's ethics and personality is worrying for me, and I don't have kids. The anxiety this must produce in parents and prospective parents looking towards the future must be significant.
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Yeah, well, most parents don't realize it, or don't give a rat's ass.
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The ability to frame reality and sensitise kids to drive 'desirable' behaviours will almost certainly be abused at some point.
I wonder if it would be abused in a worse or better way than the way "parents" are abusing their role to drive "desirable" behaviours.
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As a parent of a teenage girl. Facebook(Meta) and other companies frustrate me to no end. I will likely have to start blocking them at my household, but I have be to selective due to my wife's usage of the website.
Gotta start the addiction young! (Score:3)
Kill Facebook, jail Zuckerberg (Score:3, Interesting)
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https://www.bbc.com/news/world... [bbc.com]
It's official, facebook, aka meta, is dead.
Funny thing, I would expect Mark Zuckerberg to be familiar with what meta means in Nebrew.
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Argh, typo, meant Hebrew.
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No thanks. Instead, pass laws and regulate. Regardless of what you *think* society doesn't exist on primitive vigilante justice. You want to jail a guy, pass a law for him to break.
If we were to jail people for just being arseholes I'm sure there would be plenty of people who'd line up to see you behind bars too (as well as me).
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All the language in articles about Facebook these days is highly skewed and negative... This does not strike me as an evil ploy, It's sure being portrayed as such though. That should make you think twice about blindly getting on the hate bandwagon.
Wow - that is one damned impressive troll post! It had my righteous indignation glowing white hot for longer than I care to admit. I hate trolls, but even at that I'm forced to admire your skill.
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It's a big moral panic. All the villagers have their pitchforks out and see witches everywhere.
Re:This is a witch hunt (Score:4, Interesting)
Where's the "-1, paid shill" moderation?
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You're hereby invited to write something positive about Facebook. Can't think of anything that MetaStasing cancer does for society in general or its users in particular that is actually positive, but hey, maybe you can find something.
A Meta Comment (ahem) (Score:3)
A rose by any other name smells like a steaming pile.
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Facebook was a cancer.
Now it's MetaStasizing.
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I mean... (Score:2)
Did anyone think they weren't doing this?
They track everyone.
FUCK Censorship. (Score:1)
This is ALL about control and censorship and it's being served up as if it's about saving the children or some other Trojan.
The reason they're targeting FaceBook, is because it gives the majority of people a voice. This is a bad thing, because the majorit
They can't target you if you don't play the game (Score:2)
I don't consume FB, nor do I allow my children to do so. Be a responsible parent and take an interest in what you allow your children to consume.
Best,
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Sadly, they can. Even without an account with them, you do have a profile. Yes, they have less information about you, but they still try to collect information about you. Any picture you're in that one of your friend posts will be analyzed and there will be a profile about "person 19845752", waiting for the moment when they can actually pinpoint a name to it. Usually when your friend starts tagging those pictures and hands them a name.
You'd be surprised how easy that actually is.
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How do you stop your children from using Facebook when they go out? It's like stopping your children from smoking back in the day when it was popular and pushed at them, they usually find a way.
Old news now (Score:5, Insightful)
Young people stopped using facebook years ago. It's mostly boomers and middle aged people at this point. If you think children are going to flock back to facebook then MySpace would like a word with you.
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Young people stopped using facebook years ago.
A cool meme, but sadly all that it is. There are plenty of young people on facebook.
It's mostly boomers and middle aged people at this point
The world is mostly boomers and middle aged people at this point... You described the current two largest generations.
And so (Score:2)
So did and does religion. So does the woke crowd now. So did McDonald's with their mini playgrounds.
What was the issue?
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That being a cancer (sorry, MetaStasizing cancer) to society doesn't become benign just because everyone is just as bad.
Everyone "targets" children (Score:1)
All organizations, businesses, governments, churches, drug dealers, health providers, food producers, educators, etc. etc. "target" children. They have a product that some people find worth paying for, or an ideal that people find useful, or an essential that people need, so the organizations want to make it available to as many people as they can. That may be for money, for idealism, for criminal advantage, whatever. Selling stuff to children isn't in itself wrong.
I don't use Facebook, as I consider it
So? (Score:2)
hmm (Score:2)
Aren't verbs fun? "Market to" doesn't sound nearly as scary.
Call me when Facebook can send yellow buses around to round up all the 6 year olds and put them in all day indoctrination centers. They are mere pikers at "targeting" at this point.
it's called capitalism (Score:2)
They need the kids (Score:2)
Joe Camel (Score:2)
Joe Camel is really cool kids!
anyone else read the document? (Score:2)
I did. Looks pretty reasonable. Kids are on the platform whether they like it or not. Should they continue to bury their head in the sand w/respect to the age prompt and COPPA?
Hrm. (Score:1)
Didn't Facebook just change its name to Bum Buddy ?
Parenting problem. (Score:2)
It's parents' problem, not Facebook's. You teach your kids that FB is shit and to stay away from it. Problem solved.
But then there's TikTok... Internet is so different from what it used to be, and it used to be highly educative, not much shallow fun to be found. Yes, I'm not 25 any more.
Leaked Documents Are Automatically False (Score:1)