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Where in this article (besides the headline) does it say Facebook "Referred to Kids as Young as Five as “Whales”"? The article does say "the average age of Ang
by Ajedi32 8y ago
Where in this article (besides the headline) does it say Facebook "Referred to Kids as Young as Five as “Whales”"?
The article does say "the average age of Angry Birds players on Facebook was five years old" but includes no evidence of Facebook calling five year olds "whales".
It also includes a separate recorded incident (chat logs) where two Facebook employees referred to a 15-year old as a "whale" and refused a refund, but 15 is not 5.
- watwut 8y agoWhale is industry term for player that gives a lot of money. If any of those 5 years old ended up paying a lot of money, he would be called whale. Through, given context it is less of scandal.
- alexpetralia 8y agoIt's clear however that the article had an agenda. It's also a bit misleading to call 2 employees out of over 25,000 "Facebook."
- konceptz 8y agoI’m sure the the op knows this. The point that was made is that the article’s title stated that FB staff is using that term to describe children. The article doesn’t actually support the claim it makes in the title.
- mlthoughts2018 8y agoI’m not sure I agree it’s less of a scandal in that case. If you’re dealing with a service that could potentially psychologically manipulate children, it’s on you to go the extra mile to separate metrics or risk factors related to that possibility and distinguish it from a lumped population. If Facebook internally referred to high spenders as “whales” in an aggregate manner, and had not already done due diligence to distinguish & guard against this being applied to young children, that’s already maximally severe. Had they gone even further and intentionally applied the term to children, it would just be maximally severe from an ethical standpoint rather than an incompetence / negligence standpoint.
- specialist 8y agoI worked on the recommenders for an e-commerce site. We deliberately renamed called those customers "platinum level", because of the optics.
- fabiandesimone 8y agoNot on this one, but in the original where the story was first posted is a screenshot of said documents where in fact they refer to the kids as whales (iirc)
- itchyjunk 8y agoMind linking to it? Otherwise this is just more hearsay on an already misleading click-bait title.
- JoshuaRedmond 8y agoThis[0] is from the organisation that got the files unsealed, and includes the "whale" reference at the beginning of the chat mentioned. Not sure it proves that 5-year-old were referred to in this way, but it does sound very casual in it's usage. [0] - https://www.revealnews.org/blog/a-judge-unsealed-a-trove-of-internal-facebook-documents-following-our-legal-action/ https://www.revealnews.org/blog/a-judge-unsealed-a-trove-of-...
- nailer 8y agoRelevant part: > Gillian: Would you refund this whale ticket? User is disputing ALL charges… > Michael: What’s the users total lifetime spend? > Gillian: It’s $6,545 – but card was just added on Sept. 2. They are disputing all of it I believe. That user looks underage as well. Well, maybe not under 13. > Michael: Is the user writing in a parent, or is this user a 13ish year old > Gillian: It’s a 13ish yr old. says its 15. looks a bit younger. she* not its. Lol. > Michael: … I wouldn’t refund > Gillian: Oh that’s fine. cool. agreed. just double checking Clickbait headline makes it sound like they were trying to recruit whales.
- gerardnll 8y agoOh great. What a moral. 'oh that's fine. cool. agreed. just double checking'. Thanks god he's not a judge. These guys side Facebook versus a 13 year old kid, nice morality.
- xg15 8y ago> but 15 is not 5. What is the relevant difference in this context?
- shittyadmin 8y agoA 15 year old could be working in many places - probably at least has a functional understanding of value for money based on past experiences, a 5 year old almost certainly doesn't.
- bg4 8y agoA child is a child.
- brianwawok 8y agoWhy do we try children as adults for certain crimes? It’s just a magic line. 17? No consequences. 18? Full adult.
- iamdave 8y agoBecause prosecutors sometimes care more about being seen as tough on crime and not compassionate towards young kids who do stupid things at an age where they're not blessed with an abundance of restraint and good decision making skills?
- rdiddly 8y agoBecause it's cheaper and more fair to set an arbitrary limit and apply it across the board than to try to evaluate each offender's maturity level individually.
- reaperducer 8y agoIt’s just a magic line. 17? No consequences. 18? Full adult. Complete fiction. Minors being tried as adults happens all the time. It all depends on how heinous the crime is.
- wuliwong 8y ago>The Reveal reports that in one of the unsealed documents, two Facebook employees are recorded discussing whether or not to refund a child—whom they refer to as a "whale"—who racked up $6,545 in charges from a Facebook game. I believe it was in paragraph 4.
- deadmik3 8y agoThat's a lot different than what I got from the headline, which to me implied that they were regularly categorizing children as "whales" (high spenders) based on their age and susceptibility to marketing. In this case, that 5 year old is a whale. I doubt many are
- afiori 8y agoIn my opinion it should be ethically wrong to call a 5 years old a whale even if he/she is one. > based on their age and susceptibility to marketing When you realize that you are (by mistake or not) marketing to 5 years old that can spend thousands for addictive entertainment you should also realize that something is seriously wrong.
- mc32 8y agoI think you’re both right. It’s morally wrong to categorize a 5yo as a whale but it also appears to be an isolated case, so the headline is very inflammatory.
- afiori 8y agoYes, I have overreacted and read a bit more than what was written. I stand by my point, but the reality is more nuanced than how I portrayed.
- kzrdude 8y agoIt's not morally wrong to categorize them. It's morally wrong to use them to take their family's money, though. (And maybe that's what being gotten at: a notion of these as regular and eager customers of free will, which is wrong.)
- wuliwong 8y agoI see what you are saying. It seems the article is conflating different things to make it appear worse unless I too am missing the quote where they refer to a 5 year old as a 'whale.'
- spicymaki 8y agoGood catch. They said 15 in the chat. The article was sloppily written.