26 ms·

As teens left Facebook, it planned to target 6-year-olds, documents show

417 points by samizdis 5y ago

Pxtl 5y ago
Well, in their defense, I think they've actually done a better job of it than most. My kids have FB Messenger For Kids and as a parent FB is the one company who gets it right - as a parent, I get to green-light their friends' list. Considering how many kid apps are based on whack-a-mole an endless list of user-provided content instead of whitelisting, Facebook's approach on this is a breath of fresh air.
tylerchilds 5y ago
Classy.
option_greek 5y ago
Guess the contenders for BeEvil list keeps growing. 6 year olds? What's next babies raised in Meta day cares? Why the Zuck are these companies not punished.
- s5300 5y ago
  Zuck became good friends with the administration that has appointment the majority of the nationwide judiciary at all levels of government. Probably something to do with that.
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  What law have they broken that they should be punished under? The tricky thing about the digital space continues to be that, in general, it is under-regulated. It's not whether or not companies have broken laws; it's that there are so rarely laws to break. COPPA is the only one I can think of that might possibly apply here, and nothing in COPPA says you can't build a service for 6-year-olds (only that if you're going to, it must be done carefully).
  - reaperducer 5y ago
    What law have they broken that they should be punished under? It just looks bad. Doing things just because the law allows it is a sign of low-grade thinking. It's why big companies hire /and listen to/ external PR firms.
    - adolph 5y ago
      > Doing things just because the law allows it is a sign of low-grade thinking. It's why big companies hire /and listen to/ external PR firms. Correct! Genius thinking is doing things the law doesn't allow and hiring PR firms to make it look fine.
- root_axis 5y ago
  > Why the Zuck are these companies not punished. Why would they be? The prevailing narrative is that we must enshrine social media platforms into our lives as permanent fixtures, akin to running water and electricity. If the culture were to accept that these platforms are actually unnecessary, unhealthy, and their use should be discouraged (like cigarettes), then our addicted society would have to face a major detoxing crisis that few are prepared to acknowledge.
- reaperducer 5y ago
  What's next babies raised in Meta day cares? Enron had a day care center for its employees. Built it to look like a miniature version of its corporate headquarters. What could possibly go wrong? https://maps.apple.com/?address=1565%20Louisiana%20St,%20Houston,%20TX%20%2077002,%20United%20States&ll=29.754077,-95.370817 https://maps.apple.com/?address=1565%20Louisiana%20St,%20Hou... (To be fair, I went to a corporate-run day care center when I was a kid. It was run by Playboy. They did a pretty good job of keeping things hidden from us kiddies. We thought it was just a hotel.)
- jfrunyon 5y ago
  Well, first, because even if we change the law, we don't apply that to actions taken before the law was changed (and for good reason). Second, because basically all of our laws are made by legal bribery.
- adlorger 5y ago
  its important to note two things; Facebook does not target 6 year olds. Many other companies do.
bitwize 5y ago
Ah, Facebook, all the aboveboard business sense of an American tobacco company.
1123581321 5y ago
Six year olds, dude.
- nielsbot 5y ago
  HN discourages joke comments, but this made me laugh
- rustamm 5y ago
  Six year olds are literally mentioned only in the title of the article.
  - reayn 5y ago
    I haven't been on HN for a long time (maybe a year counting my pre-account lurking stage) but I've noticed that quite a lot of comments here seem to just be knee-jerk reactions to what the submissions' title is. Not saying that's a bad thing in its entirety (the titles here are usually great and can easily spark discussion on their own) but just something I hope I'm not alone in having noticed.
    - 1123581321 5y ago
      Hey, I read the doccloud PDF in the article, but I wasn’t going to pass on a good Big Lebowski reference opportunity. I do think I see more people appearing to make substantial comments that are based on misunderstandings from the title alone, and that’s more worrisome to me.
      - reayn 5y ago
        Oops, the reference flew right above my head, nothing personal lol. >I do think I see more people appearing to make substantial comments that are based on misunderstandings from the title alone, and that’s more worrisome to me. Exactly.
  - Pxtl 5y ago
    It's a reference to a line from The Big Lebowski. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdHLM-WjwG4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdHLM-WjwG4
shadowgovt 5y ago
Looked at through a less "assume malice" lens: this line of internal questioning is how you get to a safer product for a wide userbase. The issue that Facebook is trying to solve is that kids already use the platform. They'd rather proactively have a configuration that is appropriate for that age group than offer none and have to deal with the consequences of the underage getting on adult Facebook and hitting content they aren't supposed to be exposed to (and, more corporate-selfishly: running the risk of being hauled in front of a Congressional committee or into court under the argument that they aren't complying with the spirit of COPPA if "kids just lie about their age" is a known issue on their platform that they haven't done anything proactive to address). The original memo Ars is pulling from here is a pretty good read (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21095535-copy-of-young-people-philosophy_sanitized_opt-1 https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21095535-copy-of-you...). The header is "The internet wasn't built with young people in mind, but we're about to change that." And, yeah... They've identified a real problem and a possible value-add for families.
- beefield 5y ago
  > The issue that Facebook is trying to solve is that kids already use the platform. I would assume that if Facebook cared the slightest bit, they would be able to identify users that are six years old and simply redirect them to a safe page that is not facebook. Maybe a page that says that if you really are overage, could you please send your id. At least that's what they seem to be doing if they think the user account is not legit for some other reason.
  - fallingknife 5y ago
    You mean like all of those "are you 18?" popups that I'm sure you always answered honestly?
    - ahepp 5y ago
      This company made over $85 billion revenue in 2020 based on the idea that they can precisely target ads to specific groups. The claim that they can't outsmart 6 - 13 year olds (elementary school children) is not believable.
fumar 5y ago
I can't wait to see how https://stratechery.com https://stratechery.com will defend this as a good perspective for Meta or FB. I studied Philip Morris for a paper in undergrad. PM played their fiddle perfectly to the tune of "we didn't know enough to be directly and intentionally wrong." It mirrors Facebook's attempts to be good and let the bad happen while creating smoke and mirrors for the media and government.
- sjtindell 5y ago
  I like this comparison.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  With enough studies, any narrative can be constructed and supported. Only with access to all study results can one get an objective viewpoint. That's the seduction of industry-funded and -controlled studies, and why we don't accept it as a practice in most places anymore. Congress should subpoena all Facebook's internal research efforts.
- dntrkv 5y ago
  Know about what? What exactly do you think they're hiding?
- nielsbot 5y ago
  Exxon et al too
- antiterra 5y ago
  I mean they could basically point out that Messenger Kids is a great product and has been extremely useful for connecting kids to friends and family (while allowing parental supervision.) You know, kids who, before this month, couldn’t even get vaccinated against COVID.
albertopv 5y ago
These people is sick, I can't find another reason to go after 6yo
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  Money.
ferdowsi 5y ago
People who continue to work Facebook at are going to face tough questions not just from current-day peers, but from future generations about why they willingly continued to work for such a company when there were no shortage of other opportunities available to them. At this point, engineers have to weigh the ability to work on "cool technical problems" at FB vs the serious risk of historical/reputational stain on one's legacy.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- odiroot 5y ago
  > People who continue to work Facebook at are going to face tough questions not just from current-day peers, but from future generations about why they willingly continued to work for such a company when there were no shortage of other opportunities available to them. I honestly don't think so. Were all ex-Enron employees considered unemployable or even immoral? How about Union Carbide or tobacco concerns?
  - yojo 5y ago
    I’m not sure that’s a fair comparison. It seems to me tech companies experience a much higher level of employee activism around moral issues than other industries. I also think it’s naive to assume reputational stigma won’t weigh in on hiring decisions. 3 years ago I was seeing a lot of candidates with Uber resumes. It wasn’t surprising that they were trying to leave, but it was surprising it took them so long. I would wonder if they were unable to get hired elsewhere. I always did my best to give a fair interview but it’s possible bias crept in.
    - Mehdi2277 5y ago
      I've worked at facebook in past. Facebook has been complimented at a number of interviews and one company I worked for very actively poached fb engineers. It was extremely clear for that company given the resume system even marked resumes with certain desirable companies and the sheer amount of fb employees we hired. I think my current one also has a bias for them. I have tended to stay in social media industry but I've interviewed for other industries and gotten positive reception with facebook. I remember once getting negative reception on going from facebook to a small lidar startup as interviewer viewed it as dropping to lower tier/prestige company. I have not worked for Uber, but my experience at other big tech companies is they're viewed fine too for engineering talent. As for non-engineers most of my family/friend group views facebook/similar very positively. Facebook remains largest social media by a ridiculous amount. Nearly 3 billion MAU is something no other social media company comes close. They certainly have negative sentiment too, but there are tons of people happy with them. I have worked at one company that some friends did show negative view and that was tiktok (mostly because of china concerns). Tiktok as worse then facebook in perception and even for tiktok it was still mild thing. It was never a job concern with both of them I found myself in demand anyway.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Supermancho 5y ago
𝚃̶𝚊̶𝚛̶𝚐̶𝚎̶𝚝̶𝚒̶𝚗̶𝚐̶ ̶!̶=̶ ̶𝚕̶𝚞̶𝚛̶𝚒̶𝚗̶𝚐̶,̶ ̶𝚋̶𝚞̶𝚝̶ ̶𝚒̶𝚝̶ ̶𝚖̶𝚊̶𝚔̶𝚎̶𝚜̶ ̶𝚏̶𝚘̶𝚛̶ ̶𝚐̶𝚘̶𝚘̶𝚍̶ ̶𝚌̶𝚕̶𝚒̶𝚌̶𝚔̶𝚋̶𝚊̶𝚒̶𝚝̶.̶ When it comes to putting things in their body, it's ok (eating cereal from Kellog). When it comes to socialization media, it's ok. (dressing up as Disney characters) When it's FB, hold the bar door. FB is garbage for known reasons. This story feels like some witch hunt material stretched thin - "Zuck is bad and we have to keep the eyeballs on the demonization of FB!"
- taylorfinley 5y ago
  I think the difference is there are documents showing Facebook is aware their platform harms teenage children. If Disney did studies that showed their products were psychologically damaging their consumers I think we would be right in 'witch hunting' them too. Honestly I think marketing to children is predatory in general and it's kind of crazy that we don't have more checks on this.
  - jensensbutton 5y ago
    As I understand it those same documents showed that actually they mostly _benefit_ teenage children.
  - goatlover 5y ago
    So you think shows and toys made for children should only be marketed to the parents? What if the kid is alone watching an ad on tv or the internet?
- eli 5y ago
  Wait, what is the difference between "targeting" and "luring" in this case?
  - imgabe 5y ago
    Would you apply the same language to any other company that markets to kids? Do Fisher Price and Disney “lure” children or do they just make products that are intended to be used by children?
joelbondurant 5y ago
[dead]
fallingknife 5y ago
How bad is that really? I got the full brunt of the internet at 8 and that's 1000x worse than anything on FB. I still don't think there's anything wrong with FB that isn't just people doing things that other people don't like and then blaming FB for it.
- reayn 5y ago
  > I got the full brunt of the internet at 8 and that's 1000x worse than anything on FB. This is like saying you got your ass beat by the big kids at school after messing with them and now every other kid should go through that experience as well. > I still don't think there's anything wrong with FB Check out some submissions [0] and see if you hold the same POV afterwards. 0. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=facebook&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
LinuxBender 5y ago
I assume they aren't breaking any laws and probably not the only company doing this? It's still a bit creepy. I'm sure at least a few of you are friends with some of the more notable stand-up comedians. I assume Joe Rogan / Jamie Vernon would find the topic interesting to discuss. Could they instead target the parents of 6-year-olds? Parents should in theory have a better ability to make informed decisions.
wutbrodo 5y ago
> Even before investigations revealed that the company’s products were destroying teens’ mental health This is tangential, but are we all just credulously swallowing this claim now? What's next, casual references to the obviously-stolen 2020 election? The Facebook study claimed nothing close to "destroying teens' mental health"; it didn't even show net harm! The topline claims were something like 30% of teens self-reporting that use made them feel worse... With 30% reporting no change and 30% reporting it made them feel better. That's ignoring the multiple other problems with the interpretations of the study that are floating around: 1) intentionally unrepresentative sample and minuscule sample size 2) self-reporting, which decades of higher-quality research has shown is not correlated with harm when it comes to the relationship between teens and media use (high-quality studies have so far shown a minimal relationship between phone/social media use and any objective measure of teen mental health) 3) other larger studies are even more positive than Facebook's internal study, showing almost 3x as many teens claiming an improvement in mental health from social media than a decline[1] I know we're in a post-truth world, but it's a really jarring reminder how universally the rot has spread that this is an Ars Technica article posted on HN, both entities that I once considered to at least display a _pretense_ of intellectual honesty. The weirdest part about all of this is that I hold and have always held a very low opinion of Facebook, and think their amoral reputation is fully deserved. It's just a more strongly-held belief that it's insane to barrel full-speed towards destroying any sense that we all live in the same reality. It's no more defensible when Ars+HN does it than when a QAnon Facebook group does. [1] https://www.npr.org/2021/10/06/1043138622/facebook-instagram-teens-mental-health https://www.npr.org/2021/10/06/1043138622/facebook-instagram...
- lovecg 5y ago
  You hit the nail on the head. Any other study which is nothing but a few dozen people surveyed about how an intervention X made them feel, with the results split would barely register on HN. Yet if X = Instagram use it’s suddenly this huge news.
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  > I know we're in a post-truth world, We're not in a post-truth world; people have always made stuff up. We've just got the cultural values of the scientists, applied to our good ol' traditional behaviour, so people are a little more credulous at the moment than they usually are.
pugets 5y ago
Facebook should first understand that a lot of kids avoid Facebook specifically because their parents are on it. No kid wants mom & dad to read everything they write online. TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram are all the rage among kids, and those apps are like the Wild West compared to Facebook and Twitter. TikTok is the fastest-growing app of them all, and the company don't seem to care at all what kids post online, who views the content, or whether kids are being harmed.
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  > Instagram […] compared to Facebook Obligatory “Facebook controls Instagram” comment. I'm sure Facebook is perfectly aware.
- itomato 5y ago
  Youngsters have an online profile. To do without shaping that profile would be unthinkable.
- reayn 5y ago
  Most kids avoid facebook because it's not nearly as friendly UI-wise as tiktok/instagram or snapchat and lacks a lot of "shiny features" that those apps have. The word "facebook" also comes with a pretty boomer connotation when heard by anyone under the age of 20 nowadays and most kids genuinely think that only grandparents use it. Also the quality and types of content you frequently find on facebook simply just don't attract people our age anymore. >nd the company don't seem to care at all what kids post online, who views the content, or whether kids are being harmed. They have no reason to, all of the names you mentioned make all of their decisions and changes based off of what will increase engagement, not the greater good. Pretty sure everyone on HN already knows that though.
blue_box 5y ago
They don’t need to create a new product for them. They are going to buy Roblox soon and have millions of children on their platform.
- chipgap98 5y ago
  I don't think this is a real possibility. Any large scale acquisition that Facebook tries to do would be blocked the the US government.
  - notRobot 5y ago
    ...really? The Instagram purchase wasn't blocked. The WhatsApp purchase wasn't blocked. The Oculus purchase wasn't blocked. But this one will be?
    - throwaway946513 5y ago
      Considering that those acquisitions proceeded before the intense scrutiny Facebook has received in the past year or two, it is quite likely that it would be blocked.
  - mdoms 5y ago
    This is a fantasy. The US government has not meaningfully regulated big tech and there's no reason to believe they will start now (unless you consider the public bloviation of politicians "reason to believe" - I do not).
    - chipgap98 5y ago
      General regulation for the tech industry and blocking M&A activity from large companies are completely different things. I think it is very fair to assume that the US will block large acquisitions by Facebook, Google, and Amazon going forward.
randomopining 5y ago
"Candy companies plan to lure 6 year olds."
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
rangoon626 5y ago
Some of ArsTechnica writing staff has also targeted 6-year-olds, so please spare me.
curiousllama 5y ago
I get the FB hate in general, esp bc of data privacy and impact on democracy. That said, not sure I understand the critique of the products for kids. Is it that _facebook_ shouldn’t build tech products for kids? Is it that big tech in general shouldn’t build tech products for kids (eg, YouTube for Kids)? Or am I missing something else? Sincerely asking, not trying to be snarky.
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  The whole premise rests on the idea that FB products are inherently harmful to children.
  - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
    > The whole premise rests on the idea that FB products are inherently harmful to children It's also that it's Facebook doing it. I'm not writing off social media or messaging for kids. But Facebook's culture is broken, they constantly lie about everything--I don't trust them with our next generation. (Similar situation tanking their crypto play. Had Libre not been a Facebook project, it would have likely worked.)
- Kluny 5y ago
  I've been learning in my law course about how laws are built from precedent and often need to be based on real things that have happened, rather than in anticipation of something bad maybe happening in the future. So when it comes to facebook and other big tech companies, I feel like they should be regulated similar to how toy companies can't advertise violence to children, and tobacco companies can't advertise to children at all. Those laws are incredibly strict and written with the understanding that kids are vulnerable and naive, and can't really think for themselves. But that vulnerability still has to be demonstrated, and tangible harm has to be shown before a robust law can be written (meaning, one that won't be struck down as unconstitutional or unreasonable or whatever), and such laws are still in the process of being written for the tech companies. So you could argue that they should back off of marketing to kids as a moral thing, but equally you could argue that they need to stake out their territory before laws are written that block off entire lines of business. The tech companies are behaving rationally, but the results can be awful. Society needs to fight back and protect ourselves with strong laws.
jklinger410 5y ago
Wait until you find out that people are allowed to run ads during children's television series!
EastOfTruth 5y ago
As 6yo left facebook, it planned to get at-birth-implants to take off.
bob229 5y ago
Facebook is evil and if you use it you enable it. Delete your account now
hsnewman 5y ago
Why does our society allow for a company like this to exist?
- goatlover 5y ago
  Because enough people in society want the services the company offers. There's almost 2.9 billion FB users in the world.
- motherzucker 5y ago
  "In contemporary America, children must be trained to insatiable consumption of impulsive choice and infinite variety...So it is with the child versus the gross national product: what individual child is more important than the gross national product?"[1] FB is the pinnacle of advertising. Without advertising, American society could not social engineer insatiable consumerism, and therefore could not achieve infinite growth. Big Ads is what keep the Ponzi scheme from collapsing. [1]Culture Against Man, Chapter 3: Advertising as a Philosophical System, by Jules Henry (1963)
adlorger 5y ago
i continue to be highly unimpressed with the quality of criticism about facebook - but impressed by its staying power. FB made no secret of its plans to make an Instagram for Kids with added safety controls and parental controls but it was basically shunned out of exististance for reasons ranging from "Lol Mark Zuckerberg is so awkward" to "we cant tolerate any advertising in our Late Stage Capitalism age" to "Instagram makes teenage girls want to kill themselves". None of these really stuck and Facebook continues to chug along in general with a good core business model (down a bit due to Apple's ATT, not press coverage) and lots of experimental and ambitious non-core businesses. People continue to use and rely on the products - both brands and the people who love them. If you were to ask Facebook employees themselves what their real external risk factor is, its definitely not congress or headlines - it's TikTok. And TikTok is not a better alternative when it comes to user privacy, teenage mental health, or the pernicious role of social media in our lives.
darepublic 5y ago
Parents have to protect their children from a plethora of bad influences out in the world. Yesterday was Halloween and my home was soon drowning in a sea of unhealthy and morally questionable plastic wrapped candies from evil corporations such as nestle. Most parents are more worried about the health effects than the ethics of these products, ie most people only care about themselves. Facebook.. is clearly a form of mental junk food to which you can get hooked on but I don't feel it's exceptional in this regard. Just please grow up and say no to shitty Facebook. And parents, don't let your kids/teens etc get hooked on it without a fight
mynameishere 5y ago
Just like Pfizer.
underwater 5y ago
My kids go to a school where they use an iPad from age 7 up. Messenger for Kids is a well thought out app that lets parents have a lot of control over who their kids talk to. It also allows you to monitor their conversations way that respects the kids' privacy. Contrast this with iMessage, where literally anyone can randomly message a child using their Apple ID, and there are zero controls available to parents for monitoring or approving contacts. Look beyond messaging, and the Apple store targets kids with crappy apps filled to the brim with creepy ads. YouTube recommends creepy, addictive, unmoderated, content. Facebook, and maybe Microsoft, are literally the only companies making products that are actually designed for kids.
- nafizh 5y ago
  Genuine question. Why are we assuming kids need to use messenger type apps? Shouldn't they be encouraged to be away from screens as much as possible?
- weeznerps 5y ago
  HN is so crazy sometimes. Literally the only two comments mentioning the actual product in question are positive and discuss the features and why they are useful for kids. Everyone else just uses the headline as an opportunity to sound off on why FB engineers should be taken behind the chemical sheds and beaten with electrical cords.
  - TheRealNGenius 5y ago
    I agree with this sentiment. HN lately has often seemed a reactionary cesspool where anything and everything is scrutinized based on the headline alone. The vast majority of highly upvoted comments are always negative critiques in this regard, with few comments coming from people who may have actually clicked the link. This holds true of Show HN's, Launch HN's, or anything else about anything.
  - crossroadsguy 5y ago
    HN was also this. I think you, and a lot of people, probably hold HN in some weird kind of high regard. HN is just another anonymous forum frequented mostly by techies. Also being a constant contrarian is a special flavour here.
denton-scratch 5y ago
I think Zuck has lost the plot. Anyone know the best way to take a bet on it?
nitwit005 5y ago
Anyone remember when "children's television advocates" were a thing, and there was such pressure on the issue that presidential candidates had to give opinions on forcing broadcasters to air more content for kids? There's a lot of negativity around these apps, much like there was for TV previously, but I doubt the story is much different. Parents would actually be pissed if kids were blocked from this stuff, particularly YouTube.
malwarebytess 5y ago
Ban children and adolescents from social media by law.
dleslie 5y ago
I'm no fan of Facebook's assault on privacy and exploitation of user data; I'd rather pay for a service than be the product. That said, Messenger Kids is a crazy good product that took off like fire among my children's classmates. Parents get to authorize all contacts and review all communication; kids get fun photo and video chat tools, with all sorts of kid-friendly filters and such, along with loads of minigames. The UI is so dead-simple that illiterate youngsters have no problem using it. So, yah, I'm not at all surprised to learn that they target 6 year olds. _They have a product clearly intended for them_.
- bamboozled 5y ago
  Why do kids even need a messenger app though ? Seems like a pretty shit use of a kids precious time being a kid.
  - iamstupidsimple 5y ago
    Mobile phones aren't just another time waster, they have actively replaced things like television and SMS. There is immense social pressure to be on these platforms, so I'd rather it was done in a safe way than forcing everyone onto some shadier platform (likely full of adults and without the barriers that Messenger Kids has).
    - freeflight 5y ago
      > There is immense social pressure to be on these platforms And the way to fix that is to give in to said pressure, which are just network effects, until everybody and all their kids are on FB or one of their platforms? > I'd rather it was done in a safe way than forcing everyone onto some shadier platform I wonder how most of us here managed to grow up for decades on a "not safe for children" web before we had companies like Facebook "tackle" a problem they created themselves? As hyperbolic as that might sound, this is a discussion that needs to be had properly and doesn't just stop at the emotional appeal of "Think about the children!" but also involves what role Social Media is actually supposed to hold in society and if children should have access to it at all. Yes, that sounds radical, but we are also living in times that present a radical shift to how societies used to function, maybe radical shifts need radical solutions.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

417 points by samizdis 5y ago

Pxtl 5y ago

Well, in their defense, I think they've actually done a better job of it than most. My kids have FB Messenger For Kids and as a parent FB is the one company who gets it right - as a parent, I get to green-light their friends' list. Considering how many kid apps are based on whack-a-mole an endless list of user-provided content instead of whitelisting, Facebook's approach on this is a breath of fresh air.

tylerchilds 5y ago

Classy.

option_greek 5y ago

Guess the contenders for BeEvil list keeps growing. 6 year olds? What's next babies raised in Meta day cares? Why the Zuck are these companies not punished.

s5300 5y ago
Zuck became good friends with the administration that has appointment the majority of the nationwide judiciary at all levels of government. Probably something to do with that.
shadowgovt 5y ago
What law have they broken that they should be punished under? The tricky thing about the digital space continues to be that, in general, it is under-regulated. It's not whether or not companies have broken laws; it's that there are so rarely laws to break. COPPA is the only one I can think of that might possibly apply here, and nothing in COPPA says you can't build a service for 6-year-olds (only that if you're going to, it must be done carefully).
- reaperducer 5y ago
  What law have they broken that they should be punished under? It just looks bad. Doing things just because the law allows it is a sign of low-grade thinking. It's why big companies hire /and listen to/ external PR firms.
  - adolph 5y ago
    > Doing things just because the law allows it is a sign of low-grade thinking. It's why big companies hire /and listen to/ external PR firms. Correct! Genius thinking is doing things the law doesn't allow and hiring PR firms to make it look fine.
root_axis 5y ago
> Why the Zuck are these companies not punished. Why would they be? The prevailing narrative is that we must enshrine social media platforms into our lives as permanent fixtures, akin to running water and electricity. If the culture were to accept that these platforms are actually unnecessary, unhealthy, and their use should be discouraged (like cigarettes), then our addicted society would have to face a major detoxing crisis that few are prepared to acknowledge.
reaperducer 5y ago
What's next babies raised in Meta day cares? Enron had a day care center for its employees. Built it to look like a miniature version of its corporate headquarters. What could possibly go wrong? https://maps.apple.com/?address=1565%20Louisiana%20St,%20Houston,%20TX%20%2077002,%20United%20States&ll=29.754077,-95.370817 https://maps.apple.com/?address=1565%20Louisiana%20St,%20Hou... (To be fair, I went to a corporate-run day care center when I was a kid. It was run by Playboy. They did a pretty good job of keeping things hidden from us kiddies. We thought it was just a hotel.)
jfrunyon 5y ago
Well, first, because even if we change the law, we don't apply that to actions taken before the law was changed (and for good reason). Second, because basically all of our laws are made by legal bribery.
adlorger 5y ago
its important to note two things; Facebook does not target 6 year olds. Many other companies do.

bitwize 5y ago

Ah, Facebook, all the aboveboard business sense of an American tobacco company.

1123581321 5y ago

Six year olds, dude.

nielsbot 5y ago
HN discourages joke comments, but this made me laugh
rustamm 5y ago
Six year olds are literally mentioned only in the title of the article.
- reayn 5y ago
  I haven't been on HN for a long time (maybe a year counting my pre-account lurking stage) but I've noticed that quite a lot of comments here seem to just be knee-jerk reactions to what the submissions' title is. Not saying that's a bad thing in its entirety (the titles here are usually great and can easily spark discussion on their own) but just something I hope I'm not alone in having noticed.
  - 1123581321 5y ago
    Hey, I read the doccloud PDF in the article, but I wasn’t going to pass on a good Big Lebowski reference opportunity. I do think I see more people appearing to make substantial comments that are based on misunderstandings from the title alone, and that’s more worrisome to me.
    - reayn 5y ago
      Oops, the reference flew right above my head, nothing personal lol. >I do think I see more people appearing to make substantial comments that are based on misunderstandings from the title alone, and that’s more worrisome to me. Exactly.
- Pxtl 5y ago
  It's a reference to a line from The Big Lebowski. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdHLM-WjwG4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdHLM-WjwG4

shadowgovt 5y ago

Looked at through a less "assume malice" lens: this line of internal questioning is how you get to a safer product for a wide userbase. The issue that Facebook is trying to solve is that kids already use the platform. They'd rather proactively have a configuration that is appropriate for that age group than offer none and have to deal with the consequences of the underage getting on adult Facebook and hitting content they aren't supposed to be exposed to (and, more corporate-selfishly: running the risk of being hauled in front of a Congressional committee or into court under the argument that they aren't complying with the spirit of COPPA if "kids just lie about their age" is a known issue on their platform that they haven't done anything proactive to address). The original memo Ars is pulling from here is a pretty good read (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21095535-copy-of-young-people-philosophy_sanitized_opt-1 https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21095535-copy-of-you...). The header is "The internet wasn't built with young people in mind, but we're about to change that." And, yeah... They've identified a real problem and a possible value-add for families.

beefield 5y ago
> The issue that Facebook is trying to solve is that kids already use the platform. I would assume that if Facebook cared the slightest bit, they would be able to identify users that are six years old and simply redirect them to a safe page that is not facebook. Maybe a page that says that if you really are overage, could you please send your id. At least that's what they seem to be doing if they think the user account is not legit for some other reason.
- fallingknife 5y ago
  You mean like all of those "are you 18?" popups that I'm sure you always answered honestly?
  - ahepp 5y ago
    This company made over $85 billion revenue in 2020 based on the idea that they can precisely target ads to specific groups. The claim that they can't outsmart 6 - 13 year olds (elementary school children) is not believable.

fumar 5y ago

I can't wait to see how https://stratechery.com https://stratechery.com will defend this as a good perspective for Meta or FB. I studied Philip Morris for a paper in undergrad. PM played their fiddle perfectly to the tune of "we didn't know enough to be directly and intentionally wrong." It mirrors Facebook's attempts to be good and let the bad happen while creating smoke and mirrors for the media and government.

sjtindell 5y ago
I like this comparison.
ethbr0 5y ago
With enough studies, any narrative can be constructed and supported. Only with access to all study results can one get an objective viewpoint. That's the seduction of industry-funded and -controlled studies, and why we don't accept it as a practice in most places anymore. Congress should subpoena all Facebook's internal research efforts.
dntrkv 5y ago
Know about what? What exactly do you think they're hiding?
nielsbot 5y ago
Exxon et al too
antiterra 5y ago
I mean they could basically point out that Messenger Kids is a great product and has been extremely useful for connecting kids to friends and family (while allowing parental supervision.) You know, kids who, before this month, couldn’t even get vaccinated against COVID.

albertopv 5y ago

These people is sick, I can't find another reason to go after 6yo

wizzwizz4 5y ago
Money.

ferdowsi 5y ago

People who continue to work Facebook at are going to face tough questions not just from current-day peers, but from future generations about why they willingly continued to work for such a company when there were no shortage of other opportunities available to them. At this point, engineers have to weigh the ability to work on "cool technical problems" at FB vs the serious risk of historical/reputational stain on one's legacy.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
odiroot 5y ago
> People who continue to work Facebook at are going to face tough questions not just from current-day peers, but from future generations about why they willingly continued to work for such a company when there were no shortage of other opportunities available to them. I honestly don't think so. Were all ex-Enron employees considered unemployable or even immoral? How about Union Carbide or tobacco concerns?
- yojo 5y ago
  I’m not sure that’s a fair comparison. It seems to me tech companies experience a much higher level of employee activism around moral issues than other industries. I also think it’s naive to assume reputational stigma won’t weigh in on hiring decisions. 3 years ago I was seeing a lot of candidates with Uber resumes. It wasn’t surprising that they were trying to leave, but it was surprising it took them so long. I would wonder if they were unable to get hired elsewhere. I always did my best to give a fair interview but it’s possible bias crept in.
  - Mehdi2277 5y ago
    I've worked at facebook in past. Facebook has been complimented at a number of interviews and one company I worked for very actively poached fb engineers. It was extremely clear for that company given the resume system even marked resumes with certain desirable companies and the sheer amount of fb employees we hired. I think my current one also has a bias for them. I have tended to stay in social media industry but I've interviewed for other industries and gotten positive reception with facebook. I remember once getting negative reception on going from facebook to a small lidar startup as interviewer viewed it as dropping to lower tier/prestige company. I have not worked for Uber, but my experience at other big tech companies is they're viewed fine too for engineering talent. As for non-engineers most of my family/friend group views facebook/similar very positively. Facebook remains largest social media by a ridiculous amount. Nearly 3 billion MAU is something no other social media company comes close. They certainly have negative sentiment too, but there are tons of people happy with them. I have worked at one company that some friends did show negative view and that was tiktok (mostly because of china concerns). Tiktok as worse then facebook in perception and even for tiktok it was still mild thing. It was never a job concern with both of them I found myself in demand anyway.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Supermancho 5y ago

𝚃̶𝚊̶𝚛̶𝚐̶𝚎̶𝚝̶𝚒̶𝚗̶𝚐̶ ̶!̶=̶ ̶𝚕̶𝚞̶𝚛̶𝚒̶𝚗̶𝚐̶,̶ ̶𝚋̶𝚞̶𝚝̶ ̶𝚒̶𝚝̶ ̶𝚖̶𝚊̶𝚔̶𝚎̶𝚜̶ ̶𝚏̶𝚘̶𝚛̶ ̶𝚐̶𝚘̶𝚘̶𝚍̶ ̶𝚌̶𝚕̶𝚒̶𝚌̶𝚔̶𝚋̶𝚊̶𝚒̶𝚝̶.̶ When it comes to putting things in their body, it's ok (eating cereal from Kellog). When it comes to socialization media, it's ok. (dressing up as Disney characters) When it's FB, hold the bar door. FB is garbage for known reasons. This story feels like some witch hunt material stretched thin - "Zuck is bad and we have to keep the eyeballs on the demonization of FB!"

taylorfinley 5y ago
I think the difference is there are documents showing Facebook is aware their platform harms teenage children. If Disney did studies that showed their products were psychologically damaging their consumers I think we would be right in 'witch hunting' them too. Honestly I think marketing to children is predatory in general and it's kind of crazy that we don't have more checks on this.
- jensensbutton 5y ago
  As I understand it those same documents showed that actually they mostly _benefit_ teenage children.
- goatlover 5y ago
  So you think shows and toys made for children should only be marketed to the parents? What if the kid is alone watching an ad on tv or the internet?
eli 5y ago
Wait, what is the difference between "targeting" and "luring" in this case?
- imgabe 5y ago
  Would you apply the same language to any other company that markets to kids? Do Fisher Price and Disney “lure” children or do they just make products that are intended to be used by children?

joelbondurant 5y ago

[dead]

fallingknife 5y ago

How bad is that really? I got the full brunt of the internet at 8 and that's 1000x worse than anything on FB. I still don't think there's anything wrong with FB that isn't just people doing things that other people don't like and then blaming FB for it.

reayn 5y ago
> I got the full brunt of the internet at 8 and that's 1000x worse than anything on FB. This is like saying you got your ass beat by the big kids at school after messing with them and now every other kid should go through that experience as well. > I still don't think there's anything wrong with FB Check out some submissions [0] and see if you hold the same POV afterwards. 0. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=facebook&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

LinuxBender 5y ago

I assume they aren't breaking any laws and probably not the only company doing this? It's still a bit creepy. I'm sure at least a few of you are friends with some of the more notable stand-up comedians. I assume Joe Rogan / Jamie Vernon would find the topic interesting to discuss. Could they instead target the parents of 6-year-olds? Parents should in theory have a better ability to make informed decisions.

wutbrodo 5y ago

> Even before investigations revealed that the company’s products were destroying teens’ mental health This is tangential, but are we all just credulously swallowing this claim now? What's next, casual references to the obviously-stolen 2020 election? The Facebook study claimed nothing close to "destroying teens' mental health"; it didn't even show net harm! The topline claims were something like 30% of teens self-reporting that use made them feel worse... With 30% reporting no change and 30% reporting it made them feel better. That's ignoring the multiple other problems with the interpretations of the study that are floating around: 1) intentionally unrepresentative sample and minuscule sample size 2) self-reporting, which decades of higher-quality research has shown is not correlated with harm when it comes to the relationship between teens and media use (high-quality studies have so far shown a minimal relationship between phone/social media use and any objective measure of teen mental health) 3) other larger studies are even more positive than Facebook's internal study, showing almost 3x as many teens claiming an improvement in mental health from social media than a decline[1] I know we're in a post-truth world, but it's a really jarring reminder how universally the rot has spread that this is an Ars Technica article posted on HN, both entities that I once considered to at least display a _pretense_ of intellectual honesty. The weirdest part about all of this is that I hold and have always held a very low opinion of Facebook, and think their amoral reputation is fully deserved. It's just a more strongly-held belief that it's insane to barrel full-speed towards destroying any sense that we all live in the same reality. It's no more defensible when Ars+HN does it than when a QAnon Facebook group does. [1] https://www.npr.org/2021/10/06/1043138622/facebook-instagram-teens-mental-health https://www.npr.org/2021/10/06/1043138622/facebook-instagram...

lovecg 5y ago
You hit the nail on the head. Any other study which is nothing but a few dozen people surveyed about how an intervention X made them feel, with the results split would barely register on HN. Yet if X = Instagram use it’s suddenly this huge news.
wizzwizz4 5y ago
> I know we're in a post-truth world, We're not in a post-truth world; people have always made stuff up. We've just got the cultural values of the scientists, applied to our good ol' traditional behaviour, so people are a little more credulous at the moment than they usually are.

pugets 5y ago

Facebook should first understand that a lot of kids avoid Facebook specifically because their parents are on it. No kid wants mom & dad to read everything they write online. TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram are all the rage among kids, and those apps are like the Wild West compared to Facebook and Twitter. TikTok is the fastest-growing app of them all, and the company don't seem to care at all what kids post online, who views the content, or whether kids are being harmed.

wizzwizz4 5y ago
> Instagram […] compared to Facebook Obligatory “Facebook controls Instagram” comment. I'm sure Facebook is perfectly aware.
itomato 5y ago
Youngsters have an online profile. To do without shaping that profile would be unthinkable.
reayn 5y ago
Most kids avoid facebook because it's not nearly as friendly UI-wise as tiktok/instagram or snapchat and lacks a lot of "shiny features" that those apps have. The word "facebook" also comes with a pretty boomer connotation when heard by anyone under the age of 20 nowadays and most kids genuinely think that only grandparents use it. Also the quality and types of content you frequently find on facebook simply just don't attract people our age anymore. >nd the company don't seem to care at all what kids post online, who views the content, or whether kids are being harmed. They have no reason to, all of the names you mentioned make all of their decisions and changes based off of what will increase engagement, not the greater good. Pretty sure everyone on HN already knows that though.

blue_box 5y ago

They don’t need to create a new product for them. They are going to buy Roblox soon and have millions of children on their platform.

chipgap98 5y ago
I don't think this is a real possibility. Any large scale acquisition that Facebook tries to do would be blocked the the US government.
- notRobot 5y ago
  ...really? The Instagram purchase wasn't blocked. The WhatsApp purchase wasn't blocked. The Oculus purchase wasn't blocked. But this one will be?
  - throwaway946513 5y ago
    Considering that those acquisitions proceeded before the intense scrutiny Facebook has received in the past year or two, it is quite likely that it would be blocked.
- mdoms 5y ago
  This is a fantasy. The US government has not meaningfully regulated big tech and there's no reason to believe they will start now (unless you consider the public bloviation of politicians "reason to believe" - I do not).
  - chipgap98 5y ago
    General regulation for the tech industry and blocking M&A activity from large companies are completely different things. I think it is very fair to assume that the US will block large acquisitions by Facebook, Google, and Amazon going forward.

randomopining 5y ago

"Candy companies plan to lure 6 year olds."

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

rangoon626 5y ago

Some of ArsTechnica writing staff has also targeted 6-year-olds, so please spare me.

curiousllama 5y ago

I get the FB hate in general, esp bc of data privacy and impact on democracy. That said, not sure I understand the critique of the products for kids. Is it that _facebook_ shouldn’t build tech products for kids? Is it that big tech in general shouldn’t build tech products for kids (eg, YouTube for Kids)? Or am I missing something else? Sincerely asking, not trying to be snarky.

s1artibartfast 5y ago
The whole premise rests on the idea that FB products are inherently harmful to children.
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago
  > The whole premise rests on the idea that FB products are inherently harmful to children It's also that it's Facebook doing it. I'm not writing off social media or messaging for kids. But Facebook's culture is broken, they constantly lie about everything--I don't trust them with our next generation. (Similar situation tanking their crypto play. Had Libre not been a Facebook project, it would have likely worked.)
Kluny 5y ago
I've been learning in my law course about how laws are built from precedent and often need to be based on real things that have happened, rather than in anticipation of something bad maybe happening in the future. So when it comes to facebook and other big tech companies, I feel like they should be regulated similar to how toy companies can't advertise violence to children, and tobacco companies can't advertise to children at all. Those laws are incredibly strict and written with the understanding that kids are vulnerable and naive, and can't really think for themselves. But that vulnerability still has to be demonstrated, and tangible harm has to be shown before a robust law can be written (meaning, one that won't be struck down as unconstitutional or unreasonable or whatever), and such laws are still in the process of being written for the tech companies. So you could argue that they should back off of marketing to kids as a moral thing, but equally you could argue that they need to stake out their territory before laws are written that block off entire lines of business. The tech companies are behaving rationally, but the results can be awful. Society needs to fight back and protect ourselves with strong laws.

jklinger410 5y ago

Wait until you find out that people are allowed to run ads during children's television series!

EastOfTruth 5y ago

As 6yo left facebook, it planned to get at-birth-implants to take off.

bob229 5y ago

Facebook is evil and if you use it you enable it. Delete your account now

hsnewman 5y ago

Why does our society allow for a company like this to exist?

goatlover 5y ago
Because enough people in society want the services the company offers. There's almost 2.9 billion FB users in the world.
motherzucker 5y ago
"In contemporary America, children must be trained to insatiable consumption of impulsive choice and infinite variety...So it is with the child versus the gross national product: what individual child is more important than the gross national product?"[1] FB is the pinnacle of advertising. Without advertising, American society could not social engineer insatiable consumerism, and therefore could not achieve infinite growth. Big Ads is what keep the Ponzi scheme from collapsing. [1]Culture Against Man, Chapter 3: Advertising as a Philosophical System, by Jules Henry (1963)

adlorger 5y ago

i continue to be highly unimpressed with the quality of criticism about facebook - but impressed by its staying power. FB made no secret of its plans to make an Instagram for Kids with added safety controls and parental controls but it was basically shunned out of exististance for reasons ranging from "Lol Mark Zuckerberg is so awkward" to "we cant tolerate any advertising in our Late Stage Capitalism age" to "Instagram makes teenage girls want to kill themselves". None of these really stuck and Facebook continues to chug along in general with a good core business model (down a bit due to Apple's ATT, not press coverage) and lots of experimental and ambitious non-core businesses. People continue to use and rely on the products - both brands and the people who love them. If you were to ask Facebook employees themselves what their real external risk factor is, its definitely not congress or headlines - it's TikTok. And TikTok is not a better alternative when it comes to user privacy, teenage mental health, or the pernicious role of social media in our lives.

darepublic 5y ago

Parents have to protect their children from a plethora of bad influences out in the world. Yesterday was Halloween and my home was soon drowning in a sea of unhealthy and morally questionable plastic wrapped candies from evil corporations such as nestle. Most parents are more worried about the health effects than the ethics of these products, ie most people only care about themselves. Facebook.. is clearly a form of mental junk food to which you can get hooked on but I don't feel it's exceptional in this regard. Just please grow up and say no to shitty Facebook. And parents, don't let your kids/teens etc get hooked on it without a fight

mynameishere 5y ago

Just like Pfizer.

underwater 5y ago

My kids go to a school where they use an iPad from age 7 up. Messenger for Kids is a well thought out app that lets parents have a lot of control over who their kids talk to. It also allows you to monitor their conversations way that respects the kids' privacy. Contrast this with iMessage, where literally anyone can randomly message a child using their Apple ID, and there are zero controls available to parents for monitoring or approving contacts. Look beyond messaging, and the Apple store targets kids with crappy apps filled to the brim with creepy ads. YouTube recommends creepy, addictive, unmoderated, content. Facebook, and maybe Microsoft, are literally the only companies making products that are actually designed for kids.

nafizh 5y ago
Genuine question. Why are we assuming kids need to use messenger type apps? Shouldn't they be encouraged to be away from screens as much as possible?
weeznerps 5y ago
HN is so crazy sometimes. Literally the only two comments mentioning the actual product in question are positive and discuss the features and why they are useful for kids. Everyone else just uses the headline as an opportunity to sound off on why FB engineers should be taken behind the chemical sheds and beaten with electrical cords.
- TheRealNGenius 5y ago
  I agree with this sentiment. HN lately has often seemed a reactionary cesspool where anything and everything is scrutinized based on the headline alone. The vast majority of highly upvoted comments are always negative critiques in this regard, with few comments coming from people who may have actually clicked the link. This holds true of Show HN's, Launch HN's, or anything else about anything.
- crossroadsguy 5y ago
  HN was also this. I think you, and a lot of people, probably hold HN in some weird kind of high regard. HN is just another anonymous forum frequented mostly by techies. Also being a constant contrarian is a special flavour here.

denton-scratch 5y ago

I think Zuck has lost the plot. Anyone know the best way to take a bet on it?

nitwit005 5y ago

Anyone remember when "children's television advocates" were a thing, and there was such pressure on the issue that presidential candidates had to give opinions on forcing broadcasters to air more content for kids? There's a lot of negativity around these apps, much like there was for TV previously, but I doubt the story is much different. Parents would actually be pissed if kids were blocked from this stuff, particularly YouTube.

malwarebytess 5y ago

Ban children and adolescents from social media by law.

dleslie 5y ago

I'm no fan of Facebook's assault on privacy and exploitation of user data; I'd rather pay for a service than be the product. That said, Messenger Kids is a crazy good product that took off like fire among my children's classmates. Parents get to authorize all contacts and review all communication; kids get fun photo and video chat tools, with all sorts of kid-friendly filters and such, along with loads of minigames. The UI is so dead-simple that illiterate youngsters have no problem using it. So, yah, I'm not at all surprised to learn that they target 6 year olds. _They have a product clearly intended for them_.

bamboozled 5y ago
Why do kids even need a messenger app though ? Seems like a pretty shit use of a kids precious time being a kid.
- iamstupidsimple 5y ago
  Mobile phones aren't just another time waster, they have actively replaced things like television and SMS. There is immense social pressure to be on these platforms, so I'd rather it was done in a safe way than forcing everyone onto some shadier platform (likely full of adults and without the barriers that Messenger Kids has).
  - freeflight 5y ago
    > There is immense social pressure to be on these platforms And the way to fix that is to give in to said pressure, which are just network effects, until everybody and all their kids are on FB or one of their platforms? > I'd rather it was done in a safe way than forcing everyone onto some shadier platform I wonder how most of us here managed to grow up for decades on a "not safe for children" web before we had companies like Facebook "tackle" a problem they created themselves? As hyperbolic as that might sound, this is a discussion that needs to be had properly and doesn't just stop at the emotional appeal of "Think about the children!" but also involves what role Social Media is actually supposed to hold in society and if children should have access to it at all. Yes, that sounds radical, but we are also living in times that present a radical shift to how societies used to function, maybe radical shifts need radical solutions.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]