Meta Under the Microscope

Meta Under the Microscope

Image by A3DigitalStudio from Pixabay

The social networks love kids. That especially seems to be the case with Meta nee Facebook, with its many social platforms. The company has a long history of engaging children – the more the merrier and cha-ching!

Just how engaging and by what methods is at long last coming under scrutiny. How Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta Failed Children on Safety, States Say, the New York Times reported. The C.E.O. and his team drove Meta’s efforts to capture young users and misled the public about the risks, lawsuits by state attorneys general say. That’s not exactly a news flash, but then again, it’s the New York Times – all the news that’s fit to print…eventually.

There were more than a dozen lawsuits filed since last year by the attorneys general of 45 states and the District of Columbia, the Times reported. “The states accuse Meta of unfairly ensnaring teenagers and children on Instagram and Facebook while deceiving the public about the hazards.

“A New York Times analysis of the states’ court filings — including roughly 1,400 pages of company documents and correspondence filed as evidence by the State of Tennessee — shows how Mr. Zuckerberg and other Meta leaders repeatedly promoted the safety of the company’s platforms, playing down risks to young people, even as they rejected employee pleas to bolster youth guardrails and hire additional staff.”

It’s what we’ve long known and what certain came out when whistleblower Frances Haugen went public: that Facebook’s focus was on profits over safety, and never mind that there were no real barriers that prevented children under 13 from signing up for the platform(s).

“Within the company, Meta’s actual knowledge that millions of Instagram users are under the age of 13 is an open secret that is routinely documented, rigorously analyzed and confirmed, and zealously protected from disclosure to the public,” read one AG’s complaint.

Facebook’s and Instagram’s terms of use prohibit users under 13.

“In 2019 after Instagram introduced an appearance-altering filter, Fix Me, which mimicked the nip/tuck lines that cosmetic surgeons draw on patients’ faces, some mental health experts warned that the surgery-like camera effects could normalize unrealistic beauty standards for young women, exacerbating body-image disorders.”

It was temporarily banned, but the ban was short-lived, as Zuckerberg stated in an email that “there’s no data I’ve seen that suggests doing so is helpful or not doing so is harmful.”

But it gets better. Or worse, once one really scrutinizes the company.

“Facebook is a hub of sex trafficking recruitment in the US, report says,” Ars Technica (et al) reported. “Facebook was the most common platform for child recruitment, with the report noting that “65% of child victims recruited on social media were recruited through Facebook.”

If there’s any doubt in your mind that child safety is not exactly top of mind for the big tech players, back in May, MSN by way of the New York Post reported that Meta, Google leading nearly $1M lobbying fight to kill NY online child safety bills.

”The Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation (SAFE) for Kids Act would crack down on addictive recommendation algorithms used by social media apps by requiring them to provide default chronological feeds for users 18 or younger unless they receive parental consent. It would also allow parents to impose time limits on social media use and in-app notifications,” while the “Child Data Protection Act would block apps from collecting or selling the personal or location data from users under 18 unless they consent. Kids under 13 would need a parent’s consent.”

“As we continue working with New York lawmakers, it’s crucial that we avoid quick fixes and, instead, support legislation that actually empowers parents and supports teens online,” (said a Meta spokesperson, addressing the company’s concerns about the proposed legislation).

Quick fixes? This problem has been festering for well over a decade, with Big Tech blocking any proposed solutions at every turn.

Does make you wonder whom or what they’re actually protecting, besides their profits, of course.

Several proxies oppose the bills including the “Chamber of Progress, a Big Tech-funded advocacy group that pushes the industry’s agenda at the national and state level,” and you’ve gotta love the name. It’s right up there with the Southern Poverty Law Center, a Big Tech-backed censorship vehicle, so you can only imagine whom they target.

Then again, obfuscation and double-speak have long been baked into Big Tech’s DNA and at the end of the day, it seems that it’s that segment of the population that they so publicly and vehemently claim to aim to protect, that always gets burned. Onward and forward.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.