The Wall Street Journal has published the latest investigation in its “The Facebook Files” series, which details the company’s efforts to attract young children to the platform.
The internal documents he published reveal that Facebook set up a task force to study children and discover ways in which revenue could be generated.
One such document refers to children aged 10 to 12 ("tweens") and describes them as a "valuable but untapped audience". Another suggests the "use of playdates" as a means to "grow" Facebook.
Another document, dated March 2021, states that Facebook is facing a "global influx of teens" and warns that the "acquisition" of adolescent users "seems to be slowing down."
Internally, Facebook expects its teen audience to shrink by an additional 45% by 2023.
Facebook's profitable advertising business derives almost all its profits from the widespread monitoring of its users, but also from the collection of their data. It uses this data to create behavioral profiles that are used to "micro-target" ads and measure their effectiveness.
In America, a federal law prohibits the collection of data by children under the age of 13, but Facebook seems to be looking for ways to persuade children to adopt its services.
Another Facebook document cited by the Wall Street Journal states that children "go online from the age of six". "Imagine a Facebook experience designed like this."
This week, Facebook announced that it is stopping efforts to release the "Instagram Kids" application-service.
A Wall Street Journal study found that Facebook knew that Instagram had a negative effect on the mental health of some teenage users.
"We cause body image problems in one in three teens," the study said, noting that some teens had suicidal thoughts on the platform. Facebook later claimed that the research was misleading and that the findings only concerned "teenage girls who told us they had problems with their body image and reported that using Instagram made them feel worse".
The publication, however, led Democratic lawmakers to call on CEO Mark Zuckerberg to stop the Instagram Kids project, saying the app "poses a significant threat to young people's well-being."
George is still wondering what he is doing here….
