Facebook Lets Advertisers Target Insecure Teens, Says Report (cnet.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: Leaked documents from Facebook's team in Australia allegedly show the social giant's ability to help advertisers target teens who feel "worthless." The documents, first revealed by The Australian, say Facebook can spot when teens "need a confidence boost." The documents reportedly get even more specific, saying Facebook's algorithm can pinpoint when teens feel "useless," "stressed," "failure," "silly," "stupid," "worthless" and "defeated." Using Facebook's tools as well as image recognition, advertisers would be able to find teens in some of their lowest moments -- and then target ads to them. The leaked documents also detailed how advertisers could use Facebook's algorithms to find teens who were interested in "working out and losing weight" and promote health products, according to The Australian. Facebook's team in Australia was reportedly looking to capitalize on 6.4 million teens who use the social network in their region.

Comments

ha ha, jokes on them

[Anonymous Coward]

any teens using facebook are worthless

Re:ha ha, jokes on them

[LifesABeach]

There are 2 types of teens. Those that think their worthless, and those that think their entitled, and worthless. Guess which one has the money to spend with?

Re:ha ha, jokes on them

[CrimsonAvenger]

Plus the ones who can't spell "they're" reliably, of course. Still some of those....

Targeted Advertising Epidemic

[pr0fessor]

The next headline will be "Target Advertising Causes Teen Bulimia Epidemic".

One weird trick to secure your teen!

[GungaDan]

Disable broadcast of your teen's SSID. Removing wifi access to your teen altogether provides even stronger security.

Re:One weird trick to secure your teen!

[networkBoy]

To some extent, yes.
Kids' minds are still developing, their capacity to handle some of the unfiltered bullshit on the internet is limited by hormones, experience, etc.
The "walled garden" approach to life is not a bad thing, as long as the walls are allowed to expand reasonably and not forever remain a tiny cell (which would stunt growth). It's the mental information processing equivalent of keeping them in the shallow side of the pool while learning to swim when you're not there with them, going into the deep end only with someone there to help them out if (when) they get in trouble.

As a parent of a 'tween' girl it is something I struggle with deeply. The constant battle of trying to be a good *parent* and giving her safe, yet still challenging limits (letting the walls of the garden expand) and being that overly protective, grab my shotgun "dad" that wants to keep those walls close and tight to keep everything bad away. Intellectually I know that's horrible for her development as a human being, but that doesn't mean I don't feel the desire to do it anyway.

One of the hardest things to do as a parent is to watch your kid set themselves up for a failure and do nothing, knowing that it's gonna hurt, but they'll learn so much more than if you interceded and bailed them out.

Re:its called optimization

[bluefoxlucid]

Because somebody probably envisioned identifying teens sliding toward depression and advertising things at them like study groups, social activities, or other sorts of stuff surmised to help prevent teen suicide and whatnot; and a bunch of other people probably didn't think much of it, thus opening the door to allow marketers to target teens who are likely to do certain things on an impulse.

People in vulnerable emotional states are easily-influenced. Identifying these states is good; using them to manipulate people into exchanges which typically benefit you more than them enough that they tend to avoid said exchanges is bad.

Re:its called optimization

[gweihir]

Because targeting the weak is something only the truly immoral do? That you even have to ask is showing a significant problem on your side.

Worst thing you can say

[110010001000]

"you can do anything and be anything in life". No you can't. It is the worst lie to tell a child.

Re:Worst thing you can say

[avandesande]

Getting them to want to do something is the hard part.

Re:Devils advocate

[avandesande]

Large bottles of tylenol?

Facebook would sell their grandmother for a buck.

[WCMI92]

Which is all you need to know to know that your children should not be anywhere near it!

Re:Devils advocate

[ShanghaiBill]

And what (obviously hypothetical) product could "remove the teens problem"?

1. Antidepressants
2. Dark chocolate
3. Pet adoption
4. Social activities
5. Razor blades

Predatory

[slashrio]

That's what I call predatory advertising.
I'm glad I'm not part of that stupid facebook abuse.

Re:its called optimization

[chihowa]

This isn't the result of some abstract optimizing algorithm (yet). A person, or several people, in various marketing departments specifically decided to target insecure minors in order to increase their companies' profits (ostensibly because they are more easily manipulated).

You can claim it's incorrect to attribute motives and morality to corporations and be technically correct (the best kind of correct), but the individual decision makers in the companies don't get off the hook so easily.