Facebook Papers, which were leaked by the company, revealed that the social media giant was targeting children as young as six years old in order to increase its consumer base and generate more profits for the tech giant.
On April 9, an internal blog post announced that the company was in process of hiring employees to reimagine its entire range of products for children aged 6-9 years and tweens 10-12 years. The company targets children as young as 13 years old.
The post, titled ‘The internet wasn’t built with young people in mind, but we’re about to change that,’ was among documents released by whistleblower Frances Haugen’s legal team and provided to Congress and the Securities and Exchange Commission that has become known as the Facebook Papers.
‘Our company is making a major investment in youth and has spun up a cross-company virtual team to make safer, more private, experiences for youth that improve their and their household’s well-being,’ the blog post read, according to NBC News.
“For many of our products we have historically not designed for below 13.”
An internal blog post listing new jobs for researchers shows Facebook’s plans to begin targeting children as young as 6-years-old (Pictured: Mark Zuckerberg listens as Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, not pictured, speaks during a town hall meeting at Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, California on September 27, 2015)
The company changed its corporate title to Meta on Thursday in an attempt to rebrand itself following the Facebook Papers, which highlighted other disturbing accusations against the social media titan. These include incentives to promote hatred and misinformation, a list containing high-profile people who can evade censorship and even human trafficking, and incentives to encourage hate and misinformation.
The leaked post discusses the five different groups Facebook plans to establish: kids 6 to 9 years old, tweens 10 to 12 years old, early teens from 13 to 15 years old, late teens from 16 to 17 years old, and adults 18 and above.
According to the post, “These five age groups can help define education, transparency and controls that will meet the needs for young users.” It then goes on to cite the Age Appropriate Design Code (AADC)- a new statutory code that will apply to the company’s products in Europe.
Facebook posted that they had started the project with several researchers, but were looking for people with a background in partnering with external parties (e.g., academics, policymakers, regulators, child advocates) and global research among youth (particularly children, tweens and their caregivers). Academic, policymakers, regulators and child advocates.
There are open positions for Privacy Research, Instagram Child Safety and Family Center and MK Youth Research. (Facebook owns Instagram).
The diagram, titled “Where We’ve Been” and “Where We’re Going”, shows how the company plans on expanding beyond Facebook’s current target market in order to reach children and teens.
The internal blog post explained that the social media giant had begun research to create two new target age groups: kids ages 6-9 and tweens ages 10-12 (Pictured: Mark Zuckerberg speaking at the Facebook F8 Conference at McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, and describing new features designed to keep children safe on April 30, 2019)
In previously leaked Facebook documents that were part of the Facebook Papers, youngsters aged between 10 and 12 were described in a valuable untapped audience’.
Facebook created a team to look at ways to encourage young people to use their platform. The April blog showed that the team was growing.
The company acknowledges the Federal Trade Commission’s current regulations, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA), which imposes requirements on online services when dealing with children under 13-years-old.
The new diagram clearly shows that Facebook will target users under 13 years old. However, it does not explain how they will manage COPPA.
A spokesperson for Facebook responded to the Wall Street Journal’s reporting on the leaked post saying: ‘Companies that operate in a highly competitive space — including the Wall Street Journal — make efforts to appeal to younger generations. Considering that our competitors are doing the same thing, it would actually be newsworthy if Facebook didn’t do this work.’
Adam Mosseri is the head of Instagram and has defended the social network’s efforts to reach children
Instagram has stopped plans to create a similar app for children younger than 13 years old
Facebook research from March shows how Instagram is causing harm to young people
Instagram announced last month they would cease plans to create a photo sharing app that is aimed at children. This was in response to a disturbing study that showed the app is detrimental to young girls’ body image.
Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, defended the project on TODAY: ‘I still firmly believe that it’s a good thing to build a version of Instagram that’s designed to be safe for tweens, but we want to take the time to talk to parents and researchers and safety experts and get to more consensus about how to move forward.’
Nkechi Nneji, a Facebook spokesperson, told NBC News that while we are still hiring these roles they will largely focus on new features for teens (13-17 years old) and parents.
Other leaked material from Facebook shows that the company described children aged 10-12 years as a valuable untapped audience’. It even suggested that they could appeal to younger kids by ‘exploring playdates’ as a growth lever.
After becoming concerned about SnapChat and TikTok’s threat to their platform, the Silicon Valley company created a team to investigate ways to get tweens (10-12 years old) to use their platform.
Why do we care about tweens so much? They are an important but untapped audience. One document from 2020, obtained via The Wall Street Journal.
It continues: “Our ultimate goal is message supremacy with US Teens.”
The chart also included “young kids” from 0-4 years old, which suggests that Facebook may eventually attempt to recruit infants.
Another slide asked: “Is there any way to leverage playdates for word of mouth/growth among kids?”
The Facebook Papers, which were leaked by Facebook, have revealed a lot of evidence that former employees claim proves the social media conglomerate is aware many of its problems, including the negative effect it has on users’ mental health, especially young girls.
Research previously leaked shows that Instagram has warned young girls that it harms their body image since at least 2019.
One message shared on an internal messageboard in March 2020 that said that Instagram made 32 per cent of girls feel worse about their bodies, even if they already have insecurities.
Another slide from a 2019 presentation said: “We make body issues worse for one third of teen girls.
‘Teens blame Instagram because they feel more anxious and depressed. This was a consistent reaction across all age groups.
Another study found that 13% of British teens felt suicidal and 6% of American teens traced their suicidal feelings back to Instagram.
The research confirms what has been known for years: Instagram can damage a person’s body image especially if they are young. It also confirms that Facebook management was aware of this and actively researching it.