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This feels like it should be "obviously illegal", in the same way that it's illegal to market casinos, or loans to children, and illegal to market fast food to
by danpalmer 8y ago
This feels like it should be "obviously illegal", in the same way that it's illegal to market casinos, or loans to children, and illegal to market fast food to children in many countries.
Given this, the only reason this is able to happen is because it flew under the radar for some time and then governments take time to legislate. By the time it actually becomes illegal, there could have been years of exploitation.
How do we solve this? Assuming that governments are slow moving (there can be benefits of this), and assuming that there will always be people with more flexible morals who will happily build these products, how do we create a society where this can't happen?
- VMG 8y ago> how do we create a society where this can't happen? An incidence of zero is a difficult number to reach in any category. Everything is about tradeoffs.
- smt88 8y ago> how do we create a society where this can't happen? FB employees can and should protest. I've gone as far as refusing to work for Facebook or any other adtech firm, but not everyone is privileged enough to make that choice.
- telchar 8y agoI would argue that everyone is privileged enough to make that choice. Who are these people whose only choice is FB or starve? Surely in this field anyone who can get hired there can get hired elsewhere.
- smt88 8y agoI'm not saying they'll starve, but I'm giving up nothing by avoiding adtech. That's not true for everyone. They may not starve, but they may make much less or give up the resume boost.
- josephv 8y agoI love the spirit of this comment: Facebook employees as poor pawns to be pitied. I share the sentiment as a corporate family-oriented programmer from a flyover state that has been heavily recruited by FANNGs. I don't like working for anyone, and being a teensy cog being ground up in a duct-taped together machine like that seems like torture.
- smt88 8y agoYou seem to have misunderstood the spirit of the comment and then projected your own notions onto it.
- rektomatic 8y agoYou have to have a focus on strong families. If the child has parents or guardians who are aware of what they're doing and will stop them from doing it then there wouldn't really be a problem in the first place at least with five year olds
- Spooky23 8y agoSo kids who lack strong families are left to the wind to be exploited? Really?
- fredley 8y agoThere will always be kids who don't get a strong family, whatever you do. You can certainly reduce this sort of thing (with adequate parental leave, financial parental support and broader societal compassion for parents (hard!)) but you can never reduce it to zero. Because these children are the most vulnerable to begin with, they are the reason protections are required in law against e.g. marketing gambling products and junk food to children.
- whatshisface 8y agoYou will also always get people targeting kids, even outside of the law. Reducing the number of kids without a family still might be a lot more effective than regulating the world into being as safe as an extended family (although both would be nice).
- fredley 8y agoYou still want the law to be there to go after the bad guys though. I agree any sensible solution will incorporate both approaches.
- skh 8y agoAre you sure it’s wise to put the onus solely on the parents? Some kids are born into families with crappy parents. Are they to be exploited at the whim of whatever corporate goal is out there due to their bad luck of having crappy parents? It’s more reasonable to say that parents ought to be on top of things and recognize that not all of them are. Thus it’s best to have other safeguards in place. Like make Facebook liable for its exploitive behavior.
- glenneroo 8y agoWhat about offering more perks/options for whistle-blowers? I suppose the financial gain of whistle-blowing something like this is rather low... while the person will likely be barred from working at a lot of places (referring to an article on the Frontpage here a few days ago).
- SpicyLemonZest 8y agoThe financial gain of whistle-blowing something like this is pretty comparable to the societal value of whistle-blowing something like this. One random Facebook employee (of unknown rank and seniority) called a kid a whale; that doesn't matter in the slightest beyond its impact on an existing story. We can't incentivize people to run to the media with every chat log that looks bad out of context.
- Nasrudith 8y agoReally I think what is needed for that are far more robust protection against blacklisting of whistleblowers - although the devil is in the details given the general difficulty of proving employment discrimination. If they couldn't keep their ethical fences up we would see far more impact from the same numbers of whistleblowers - criminals think they won't be caught.
- lordnacho 8y ago> How do we solve this? Assuming that governments are slow moving (there can be benefits of this), and assuming that there will always be people with more flexible morals who will happily build these products, how do we create a society where this can't happen? This is something that happens all the time in all sorts of industries. It's sort of the thing that happens with free markets, people try various things, some are positive and some are negative. So how do we not throw out the positives when mitigating the negatives? The answer is well known but imperfect. Open and public debate, journalistic investigation, political action.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- NeedMoreTea 8y agoYou missed regulation, unless it's meant to be implied from political action. The others are mostly ineffectual when there's billions in profit and marketing against them.
- lordnacho 8y agoThat's what I meant. Political action can mean regulating, as in not allowing tobacco ads, or taxing as in sugar taxes on soft drinks, or banning, as with certain drugs. Or it can mean subsidising or other encouragement outside of basic market forces.
- onion2k 8y agohow do we create a society where this can't happen Don't hire developers who have worked for companies involved in these products. If you see Facebook on a resume, put it in the bin.
- shanghaiaway 8y agoPut it in the bin, write a blog post about it, submit the post to hn.
- kinkrtyavimoodh 8y agoMore likely to happen: write a blog post about it on Medium, submit the post to HN, continue with life as usual.
- SilasX 8y agoInterestingly, it's legal to market colleges to 16/17 year olds, which almost certainly now involves taking out big loans.
- s_dev 8y ago>how do we create a society where this can't happen? By compromising on some other value we hold dear. These things are always trade-offs. Exploiting kids for money will be something we don't permit but ultimately tolerate. We don't permit or tolerate accidental nuclear explosions as a contrasting example. We've create a society where that just doesn't happen or can't.
- emerongi 8y agoIs it illegal to market toys to kids? A kid can walk into a store and buy as much candy as they want. The problem is that usually they don't have a credit card in their hands.
- danpalmer 8y agoIt's illegal in many countries to market unhealthy food to kids, so while they can buy the candy, or ask to be bought it, kids TV channels for example won't have ads for them which limits the negative impact. You can market toys to kids, but most toys aren't harmful to their health, mental wellbeing, or financial state. Arguably many kids toys promote good health, wellbeing, educational material, etc.
- nwsm 8y agoWhat if it's a game that is good for mental development but has microtransactions, allowing them to unknowingly spend $1000s while also stimulating their brain?
- pbhjpbhj 8y agoGood mental development includes not being tricked in to spending other people's money, so I think such a game is impossible.
- rubidium 8y agoPractically speaking, if 8 year old walked into my store with their parents credit card, I wouldn't allow them to buy much more than a pack of gum.
- tyfon 8y agoIn my country, marketing to children is illegal period. They have no monetary concept. Coca-cola was recently found guilty of this in the "food industry self governing organ" in Norway [1]. This is where complaints go first and if Coca-cola continues it can result in fines and whatnot. They were using people from youtube channels that primarily makes videos for children in their own youtube channel videos. [1] https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=no&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nrk.no%2Fkultur%2Fcoke-tv-felt-for-reklame-rettet-mot-norske-barn-1.14366096 https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=no&tl=en&u=https%3...
- emerongi 8y agoWhat even qualifies as "marketing to children"? Can I not set up a tabloid with a lollipop on it?
- NeedMoreTea 8y agoWell in the UK, you may not advertise junk food to children. A tabloid aimed at adults could contain that ad for your lollipop. A comic, kid's magazine or website, or TV channel or kid's time slots may not. From my now very vague memory of childhood TV, most ads for toys and games came in the evening news and soaps slots. When the adults were around too. Junk food was still OK, so kid's tv ads were for comics, and sweets, and sugar, oops I mean cereal: Sugar Puffs, Ricicles, Frosties etc. I think it's a big mistake our regs on advertising toys to children have faded over the years. It's been shown time and again kids 12 and under can't understand commercial intent by ad industry research. So the real age may be higher.
- trimbo 8y ago> How do we solve this? I don't know, but it seems absolutely absurd that Facebook or anyone else gives someone a hard time about refunding thousands of dollars of virtual goods. Especially when you consider Nordstrom's or Costco's return policies for physical goods! I understand that you need to make a balance between easy refunds and running a business, but the COGS for a virtual good after development cost must be a fraction of a penny. Forcing parents to shell out thousands for their kids' actions in an online game is an insane policy. One would hope "the market will correct it", but maybe it does take legislation.
- hn_throwaway_99 8y ago> One would hope "the market will correct it" Puhleeze, I haven't heard any remotely viable way that any even halfway decent alternative to Facebook becomes possible. I see multiple posts a day bitching about the evils of FB, and then they come out yesterday with enormous revenue and user numbers. The only way FB will slow down is if they are trustbusted.
- gnode 8y ago> I haven't heard any remotely viable way that any even halfway decent alternative to Facebook becomes possible. Facebook is dominant in social media, but this is mobile gaming micro-payments. Google and Apple are also large in this space. That said, I've little confidence this oligopoly will do the right thing without regulation.
- dooglius 8y agoIt's called "fraud", and it is illegal in most if not all countries
- Chris_Chambers 8y agoThis is the parents’ faults. What kind of imbecile willfully gives Facebook permanent access to their credit card? Right now their bloodlines are being pruned in slow motion as their children accidentally destroy their own futures, and that’s a good thing because those children carry the same faulty genes that compel someone to enter their credit card information on Facebook. Don’t get in the way of Darwinian evolution in action, you’ll just further damage the gene pool. If you really, truly, sincerely want to stop big companies from frequently doing these “exploitative” things (even though, again, it’s a good thing because it encourages dangerously naive genetic trash to kill themselves off), the only actual solution would be labeled highly anti-semitic so I won’t even bother describing it.