Health Secretary Hits Out at Facebook's New App, Says 'Stay Away From My Kids' (theguardian.com)

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Health Secretary Hits Out at Facebook's New App, Says 'Stay Away From My Kids' (theguardian.com)

Posted by msmash on Tuesday December 5, 2017 @08:55AM from the stating-the-obvious dept.

Jeremy Hunt has publicly attacked Facebook for releasing a version of its Messenger app aimed at children, and called on the social media company to "stay away from my kids." From a report: The health secretary accused the company of "targeting younger children" after Facebook announced on Monday that it was conducting trials of an app called Messenger Kids in the US, which is designed to be used by pre-teens. He said the company was failing to act responsibly despite having assured the government that it would not target its service at children, who can only use the main social media website if they are over 13.

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Be a parent by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-05 09:00 · Score: 5, Insightful

How about you stop expecting everybody else in the world to do what you want them to do and instead be a parent to your child. Part of that is filtering and explaining the real world around them so as they grow so they don't end up as some special little snowflake thinking the world is responsible to be nice to them and not offer them things that may be detrimental to them.
You need to teach them to make responsible choices and to do that you do need to be there and be a part of their lives, especially at that early age.
1. Re:Be a parent by Captain+Splendid · 2017-12-05 09:05 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I've long said the death of sane politics in the West is not the fault of liberals or conservatives, but parents.
  
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2. Re:Be a parent by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · 2017-12-05 09:15 · Score: 2
  
  Facebook is trying to put pretty intense pressure on children by having all their friends communicate via FB Messenger. Look at the number of people on /. who hate FB, but feel compelled to use it because everyone else is. If you think a parent can stop intense peer pressure... well, I have a bridge to sell you.
  Also, children under 13 cannot make responsible choices. I think that's pretty much understood.
  
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3. Re: Be a parent by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-05 09:23 · Score: 1
  
  Facebook doesn't advertise on the kids Messenger, this is all about getting them hooked and advertising at them later.
4. Re:Be a parent by slack_justyb · 2017-12-05 09:45 · Score: 2
  
  I think the troubling thing here is that Facebook did actually go on record saying that they wouldn't do the very thing that they are doing now. If there was some sort of shakeup in management, I'd slightly understand it, but no, literally the people who told everyone that they wouldn't do this, decided to do the thing they said they wouldn't do. To me that's the highlight here. All the other stuff seems to be fluff and opinion, but this is a company that just basically said, "Yeah, we said that. Fuck it."
5. Re:Be a parent by e3m4n · 2017-12-05 09:48 · Score: 2
  
  My thoughts were that an app like this pretty much puts a jailbait label on anyone using it. Instead of being an anonymous identity of unknown age, we now have an app specifically targeting 9-12yrs old (despite the rules of facebook saying you must be 13). Regardless of how safe they think they are going to be, pervs are still going to troll, possibly 1 out of 10 of membership. It reminds me of the days of online chat where some friends would tell me that more than half the users in lesbian chat rooms were men pretending to be lesbians. For pre-teens, the only true way to avoid these pitfalls is to deny them access altogether. There is a HUGE difference, cognitively, between a 14yr old teen and a 16yr old teen in terms of mental development. Even a 14yr old has difficulties making wise, responsible, choices when approached online. The ability of a pre-teen successfully avoiding these people are nearly non-existent. I cannot speak to this app, but my own 15yr old has had random strangers of other chat-type applications send pictures of their genitals without even first introducing themselves or any sort of dialog. This was a chat site for kids playing Mindcraft, and the pervs would first join a game and then find out what server everyone was using to chat. The pervs were knowingly picking sites were an over abundant of users were ages 10 - 16.
6. Re: Be a parent by e3m4n · 2017-12-05 09:53 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  its about FB creating a social media outlet were pedophiles can one-stop-shop building up trust to some unsuspecting victims. This whole sexual harassment/assault/misconduct cleansing is probably just getting started. I have no doubt that there are more than a handful of executives at FB that have probably used coercion, and other tactics, to exercise power over someone, either by making them sexually uncomfortable, to groping, to flashing, and perhaps full-out assault.
7. Re:Be a parent by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-05 09:55 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  My thirteen year old is just now going to be getting a cell phone, even though according to her all of her friends have had one for years.
  I told her no when she asked over and over again, even with tears. I explained that it was for her good, and that I was not going to throw money around on something like that before she shows the responsibility to handle it properly and follow all the rules. Guess what. It worked. She has shown much greater responsibility, less back talk, and less disrespect to us, her brother, and her friends.
  You should try parenting for once, its very satisfying. You are a better parent by telling your kids no sometimes, otherwise you dump your entitled brats into the world unable and unprepared to cope with the reality that its not all going to be handed to them.
8. Re:Be a parent by ShanghaiBill · 2017-12-05 10:08 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  I've long said the death of sane politics in the West ...
  Can you point to a specific point in the past when politics were "sane"?
9. Re:Be a parent by youngone · 2017-12-05 10:26 · Score: 1
  
  1461
  Then of course, that usurper Henry Tudor claimed the throne and things have gone downhill ever since.
10. Re: Be a parent by i286NiNJA · 2017-12-05 10:39 · Score: 1
  
  I can't tell you how much I love this new meme.
11. Re:Be a parent by desdinova+216 · 2017-12-05 10:41 · Score: 1
  
  too much "think of the children"?
12. Re:Be a parent by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-05 10:46 · Score: 1
  
  The app, Messenger Kids, is a messaging service that gives parents authority over who their kids can chat with. Once a parent adds someone to their child's contact list through the main Facebook app, kids can video chat as well as send photos, videos, and texts, or pick something from "a library of kid-appropriate and specially chosen GIFs, frames, stickers, masks, and drawing tools," according to Facebook's announcement post.
  It's down to the parents to make the decision, now of course you can bow to peer pressure and say yes if you want to.
13. Re:Be a parent by orlanz · 2017-12-05 10:54 · Score: 1
  
  Would you have said the same about the cigarette industry targeting pre-teens and teens? Or is there no line here?
  How does a parent who at best can single channel only spend about 8 hours a day with their children compete against the multichannel bombardment of social pressures, ads, and peers? Normally the former would be less than 8 hours and the latter would be more than 8 hours (school, friends, tv, etc).
  Its hard enough for most adults to make responsible choices on a daily basis, let alone have kids do such. And here you are expecting them to actually teach others. Its not that simple to teach kids to make responsible choices.
  And the failure of such expectations is a burden on all of us. Rather than leave it to the singular unit called the parents, lets make it a community effort. This was the way it has always been; only recently has this changed. The old proverb "It takes a village to raise a child." wasn't said in vain. With Facebook's reach, isn't it part of everyone's "village" and shouldn't we expect more from such a old wise one?
14. Re:Be a parent by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · 2017-12-05 11:29 · Score: 1
  
  You can are going to let you child do something that you vehemently is wrong because you don't want them to experience peer pressure?
  
  No, I'm not going to let them do whatever. Way to strawman. But I'm also not going to silently let society apply peer pressure to them. That is, I consider part of protecting my kids isn't just forbidding them from partaking in activities, but also modifying society to be better for them.
  
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15. Re:Be a parent by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · 2017-12-05 11:39 · Score: 2
  
  Good for you, although I still think 13 is too young for a phone. Doesn't really change that FB is trying to hook all her friends. So when she does get a cell phone, she'll be installing FB, because that's where her friends are.
  Again, look at the number of people who feel compelled to use FB to communicate with people and who are adults. Why should people would be happy about that cancer growing into the next generation?
  
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16. Re: Be a parent by hackwrench · 2017-12-05 12:09 · Score: 1
  
  That's why you learn to make responsible choices and part of that is being given the choice.
17. Re: Be a parent by hackwrench · 2017-12-05 12:14 · Score: 1
  
  The funny thing is that she didn't actually want a cell phone until you gave her one. I remember all the things I thought I wanted growing up but didn't get and how I never really minded not having them.
18. Re: Be a parent by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · 2017-12-05 12:27 · Score: 2
  
  I agree, but part of letting kids make their own choices is making sure those choices have limited consequences. Given how FB gathers data, manipulates users and the general addictiveness of apps and social media, I'm not sure a FB app is a good set of training wheels.
  
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19. Re:Be a parent by gbjbaanb · 2017-12-05 12:58 · Score: 1
  
  That was before their user growth started to slow down - apparently all the cool kids are using snapchat now (which I heard on Business Matters on the BBC last night, see how down with the kids I am!!)
  So yes, entirely driven by a need to capture more eyeballs for their advertisers.
20. Re: Be a parent by easyTree · 2017-12-05 14:14 · Score: 1
  
  I can't tell you how much I love this new meme.
  ...because it's off-script?
  
  --
  Requiem for the American Dream
21. Re: Be a parent by easyTree · 2017-12-05 14:26 · Score: 1
  
  all the cool kids are using snapchat now
  Maybe if they fix their brain-dead-pinch-zoom bullshit feature/failture in Instagram, some will use that and then they too can be monitored. Creepy fucks.
  
  --
  Requiem for the American Dream
22. Re: Be a parent by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · 2017-12-05 19:31 · Score: 1
  
  Given how Facebook pushes new features live, I don't think it's reasonable to judge the app by its present feature set. Far more reasonable to see what they've done in teh past once they get inside the door.
  
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23. Re:Be a parent by tehcyder · 2017-12-05 20:21 · Score: 1
  
  You can are going to let you child do something that you vehemently is wrong
  You a word or two somewhere.
  
  --
  To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
when we have kids... by b0s0z0ku · 2017-12-05 09:04 · Score: 3, Interesting

When we have kids, the rule will be:
(1) No use of Facebook till they're grown up
(2) No pictures/tagging of them on Facebook until the same age
Why? Because children don't have enough knowledge to know whether they want to add their faces and identities to the largest corporate facial recognition database in the world.
Not afraid of "predators", other than the corporate variety.
1. Re:when we have kids... by xxxJonBoyxxx · 2017-12-05 09:11 · Score: 1
  
  When you have kids you'll learn they're more resourceful than prisoners. The boomers stuck in the social media ghetto that is Facebook will be the least of your online concerns.
2. Re:when we have kids... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-05 09:15 · Score: 1
  
  I always get a good chuckle when I hear people without kids pontificate about what they will and won't do when they have kids.
3. Re:when we have kids... by b0s0z0ku · 2017-12-05 09:23 · Score: 1
  
  Many intelligent friends of ours have the same policy. No Fecesbook. No photos of kids on Fecesbook. No tagging on Fecesbook.
4. Re:when we have kids... by b0s0z0ku · 2017-12-05 09:36 · Score: 1
  
  Not a bad choice honestly -- raise them in a place with lower cost of living and fewer manufactured problems.
5. Re:when we have kids... by e3m4n · 2017-12-05 10:00 · Score: 1
  
  its not that saying this makes you unintelligent, merely naive. By the time they get to be 13ish, they will have acquired at least 1 or more social media accounts without their parents knowledge (its not like FB shows up and cards the applicant). So without the most elaborate of content filtering, along with mobile device app filtering, app blocking, restricting content when using the dataplan instead of wi-fi, etc, you're going to lose. Even with ALL of those features, its still not enough. There are proxies out there for all kinds of content circumvention of parental and employer software. Its a constant battle, not of just your witts against your kids, but against their peers as well. Collectively they will outsmart you, simply because you cannot possibly know everything out there and how to disable it. Eventually one or more backdoors will work.
6. Re:when we have kids... by b0s0z0ku · 2017-12-05 14:00 · Score: 1
  
  I know you are -- I never thought you were joking.
7. Re:when we have kids... by b0s0z0ku · 2017-12-05 14:02 · Score: 1
  
  Sure you can. If you're not friends on Fecebook, they can't tag 'em. They can post pics, but they won't be correlated with a parent or identity.
8. Re: when we have kids... by tehcyder · 2017-12-05 21:49 · Score: 1
  
  Fecesbook... I like that.
  Almost as witty as Micro$oft.
  
  --
  To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
9. Re:when we have kids... by tehcyder · 2017-12-05 21:52 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  When we have kids
  Translation: I have no fucking idea about how kids actually behave nowadays.
  
  --
  To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
10. Re:when we have kids... by thegarbz · 2017-12-05 22:07 · Score: 1
  
  That's good. Set the challenges early. But really you have to make it harder than that. Seriously no Facebook? I wonder what you think about that rule the first time you see a teenage boy jump out of your daughter's second story bedroom as you pull into the driveway.
  All I can say man: Good luck. I think you are in for just as much of an education as your children will be.
11. Re: when we have kids... by tehcyder · 2017-12-05 22:29 · Score: 1
  
  Four words for you: Stay At Home Parent (or one works part-time). Easily doable in a country with a lower cost of living, and we have the option due to three citizenships between us :)
  Two words: helicopter parent.
  
  --
  To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
There is no "health secretary" in the US by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-05 09:08 · Score: 1, Informative

There is no "health secretary" in the US. The summary is very confusing.
No, linking to a wikipedia article does not suffice. Maybe writing a few more words in TFS would help clear up this confusion?
Now, YOU - yes YOU - before you write in outrage about how I'm all up my own ass thinking "Everything is about the US", please consider that the only country mentioned in TFS is the US. And then consider that msmash has repeatedly not explained British-centric terms, phrases, politics, and other things in summaries. The editing here is The Pants. (Did I do that right?)
1. Re:There is no "health secretary" in the US by xxxJonBoyxxx · 2017-12-05 09:14 · Score: 2
  
  Yes, the summary is shit, but we all knew msmash is a moron, and hopefully isn't more than an unpaid intern on the org chart.
  
  Editors, if you're listening, be sure to add "UK" to TFS, and start the lead with that, since no one know (or will care) who "Jeremy Hunt" is unless his middle name is "Mike".
2. Re:There is no "health secretary" in the US by Rik+Sweeney · 2017-12-05 10:24 · Score: 1
  
  The editing here is The Trousers. (Did I do that right?)
  FTFY
  
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  Summation 2
3. Re:There is no "health secretary" in the US by Cederic · 2017-12-05 17:16 · Score: 1
  
  no one know (or will care) who "Jeremy Hunt" is unless his middle name is "Mike"
  Well, since you ask, audio from the BBC's premier serious news programme on Radio 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Re:NO ONE CARES by b0s0z0ku · 2017-12-05 09:08 · Score: 1

Except the health secretary is from the land that gave the world Churchill, who helped kick Hitler to the curb.
this guy? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-05 09:15 · Score: 1

Well, right or wrong, I would prefer he stay away from my kids... - https://upload.wikimedia.org/w...
1. Re:this guy? by freudigst · 2017-12-05 19:36 · Score: 1
  
  And then there is true paranoia steered by feminist nihilism...
Re:Zee children, boss, zee children! by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · 2017-12-05 09:19 · Score: 4, Insightful

Far more importantly, if you hook them early, you don't have to worry about them going to another social network.

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Template for stealing away freedoms: by WolfgangVL · 2017-12-05 09:22 · Score: 1

______________ for our children!
______________ is bad for the children.
Only ______________ can save the children.

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Re:Why is he complaining? by Hognoxious · 2017-12-05 09:23 · Score: 1, Insightful

But he's a Tory, he can't pass a law that's anti-business.

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Is Mark Zuckerberg Actually Smart? by dryriver · 2017-12-05 09:33 · Score: 1

Smart enough to pioneer Facebook and grow it into the biggest thing on the Internet. Dumb enough to make one wrong choice after another with Facebook. Facebook, after so many years, does not even have a well laid out UI/UX design. This is a man who keeps repeating the not very sensible mantra that "all our lives should be more transparent". Then he tapes over the webcam and USB port on his own laptop and razes homes adjoining his huge new property so that his "family and kids can have some privacy growing up".

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Lots of folks don't want to be parents by rsilvergun · 2017-12-05 09:35 · Score: 1

you'd be amazed how many people get tricked into it. Or they're just plain denied birth control by religious zealots. Yeah, yeah. Don't have sex. Because abstinence based education programs work so well. You do realized that it's a basic biological need, right? If it wasn't there's be no human race. It's a pretty raw deal for the individual organism after all.

What I'm getting at is this: lots of folks get roped into parenthood unfairly. A just society would support them and make their lives and their children's lives better. One way to do that would be to regulate predatory companies who seek to take advantage of their children.

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1. Re: Lots of folks don't want to be parents by hackwrench · 2017-12-05 12:18 · Score: 1
  
  Sounds like the government provides them the means to afford them to me. Property is theft and in an infinite universe economy is the greatest crime.
Facebook confirmed for CREEPY AS FUCK by Rick+Schumann · 2017-12-05 09:39 · Score: 5, Insightful

Seriously people how much more invasive creepy shit is the rest of the world going to put up with from Facebook before they say no mas! and walk away from it? Facebook does not enhance your life, 'connect' you with anyone in ways you can't do otherwise, or anything else good, all it does is creep on you, collect data from you to sell to other creepy companies, and otherwise encourage the absolute worst humanity has to offer to come out from under the rocks they've been hiding under. Enough already, let's kill Facebook.
1. Re:Facebook confirmed for CREEPY AS FUCK by freudigst · 2017-12-05 19:33 · Score: 1
  
  I'm not sure I would go half THAT far...
errr... Parenting? by MMC+Monster · 2017-12-05 09:49 · Score: 2

My kids are 11 and 14. My 14y/o just got her first smartphone last month.
It's a couple year old iPhone 6S and it's locked down. Adjusting parental settings allowed me to prevent certain websites and totally removed the app store.
Yes, it's actually locked down more than I would like it to be. But I want her to get used to it as a locked down device with the opportunity to increase her permissions in the future.
Next year I'll probably let my 11y/o get a flip phone.

--
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1. Re:errr... Parenting? by thegarbz · 2017-12-05 22:11 · Score: 1
  
  But I want her to get used to it as a locked down device with the opportunity to increase her permissions in the future
  Nothing says training an Apple user like getting them into a very walled garden early.
  To be clear I'm not commenting about your parenting. I genuinely don't know the answer. But we have only in the past 10 years been surprised, disgusted and generally confused at the general acceptance of corporate control in the guise of keeping us safe from ourselves. I do wonder if we have actually been subconsciously trained like this by our parents. You can't go through years of control only to flip that magic 18yr switch and just pretend like it doesn't have a lasting effect on us.
Deflection by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-05 09:58 · Score: 1

The Brexit negotiations have handed the swivel-eyed wing of the Tory party another hammering, so this story is pure deflection. Hunt is a liar, and incompetent to boot, but he's nothing if not a useful idiot for the so-called greater good. The sooner this pack of retards is on the dole, the sooner we can return the country to some semblance of normality.
CAPTCHA: "behead". If only, dear algorithm; if only.
A question which I haven't heard asked by plopez · 2017-12-05 10:14 · Score: 2

That question to Zuck and Facebook management is, "Would you allow your children to use this app"?

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But wait, he's a David Cameron appointee by Anonymous Coward · 2017-12-05 11:34 · Score: 1

Conservative Party! Aren't they supposed to be all about deregulation and unfettered capitalism? To hell with the little guy, the little guy is there to be milked for all he's worth. Isn't that what the Conservative Party is all about?
And he's complaining this? What the hell man, make up your mind. You can't have it both ways.
Stupid by hackwrench · 2017-12-05 12:00 · Score: 1

Somebody should tell Jeremy Hunt everybody's kids are not his kids.
Re: Not a parent by hackwrench · 2017-12-05 12:05 · Score: 1

Everybody's kids are not your kids and they are going to have to grow up and be able to handle language they don't like sometime and it's really all just language you don't like anyhow. Enough about your fee-fees.
Forget Facebook by PPH · 2017-12-05 12:51 · Score: 1

We're trying to keep our elected representatives off our kids.

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Promises, Promises by freudigst · 2017-12-05 19:31 · Score: 1

If you don't know how little toilet paper a corporate promise is worth in this century, you just haven't been living.