Wearing the mantle of education reform,
Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg told attendees at a recent
summit on innovation in education that, "My philosophy is that for
education you need to start at a really, really young age."
A really, really good way to do that, Zuckerberg said, is to let kids ages 13 and under join Facebook.
Currently,
the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) makes it hard for
Facebook, and other websites that collect information, to allow users
younger than 13 to join — though at least
7.5 million U.S. kids younger than 13 lie and do it anyway.
Unmentioned in the
Fortune article
on NewSchools Summit talk, however, is that lifting the age restriction
might be a really, really good way to avoid future lawsuits like the
three Facebook currently faces for failure to obtain parental consent
for the use of minors' images in ads on the site.
Also unmentioned: Facebook's alliance with Google, Skype, Yahoo, Twitter, Zynga and —
um — eHarmony to oppose a
California children's privacy bill that would require users’ permission to display personal information, such as home addresses and phone numbers.
One more thing: Legally allowing kids 12 and under to join Facebook is also a really, really good way to make (
even more) serious bank.
Facebook
is said to generate $2 billion in revenue annually, mostly from outside
marketers. Its "half a billion users have made it an attractive target
for advertisers, including Coca-Cola Co., JPMorganChase & Co. and
Adidas AG,"
AdAge reports.
Now
that you're no longer able to hide your interests and other personal
details, that information is used to show you ads related to your info,
so that you're more likely to respond.
What's more, if you "Like" a Product Page, there doesn't seem to be anyway to prevent your "Likes" from being
shared with your Facebook friends, or your picture from showing up in an ad targeted on their pages.
That's the big beef in the lawsuit initiated by Brooklyn resident Scott Nastro on behalf of his son Justin,
reports AdAge. It
states that "Facebook, Inc. has regularly and repeatedly used the names
and/or likenesses of plaintiff ... for the commercial purpose of
marketing, advertising, selling and soliciting the purchase of goods and
services."
Facebook told AdAge and other news organizations that this lawsuit
and the other two are without merit and that the company plans to fight
them "vigorously" in court. AdAge adds that Facebook "sees the teenage
market as crucial to its success."
In seeking out the youth market, the fairly young company isn't blazing new ground.
The American Academy of Pediatrics points out:
Increasingly, advertisers are targeting younger and younger children
in an effort to establish "brand-name preference" at as early an age as
possible. This targeting occurs because advertising is a $250
billion/year industry with 900,000 brands to sell, and children and
adolescents are attractive consumers: teenagers spend $155 billion/year,
children younger than 12 years spend another $25 billion, and both
groups influence perhaps another $200 billion of their parents' spending
per year.
What's more, "research has shown that young children —
younger than 8 years — are cognitively and psychologically defenseless
against advertising," writes the AAP. "They do not understand the notion
of intent to sell and frequently accept advertising claims at face
value."
Of the 20 million minors in the U.S. who actively use
Facebook, 7.5 million are younger than the social network's minimum age
of 13, according to a
study by Consumer Reports. Of that number, more than 5 million are younger than 10.
What
kids younger than 13 could join Facebook without government
restrictions (instead of lying about their age)? "We'd take a lot of
precautions to make sure that they [younger kids] are safe," Zuckerberg
said.
When asked for clarification on Zuckerberg's reported comments at the education summit, Facebook emailed this statement:
Facebook is currently designed for two age groups (13-18 year olds
and 18 and up), and we provide extensive safety and privacy controls
based on the age provided. However, recent reports have highlighted just
how difficult it is to implement age restrictions on the Internet and
that there is no single solution to ensuring younger children don’t
circumvent a system or lie about their age. As Mark noted, education is
critical to ensuring that people of all ages use the Internet safely and
responsibly. We agree with safety experts that communication between
parents or guardians and kids about their use of the Internet is vital.
The email also pointed to Facebook's growing resources for kids, parents and teachers, including the
new social reporting tool and
digital safety resource page for teachers. Last year, Facebook announced a
partnership with the PTA to "promote responsible and safe Internet use to kids, parents and teachers." The social network also added a detailed
Family Safety Center recently, but as AdAge notes, there's no tips on how to teach kids about the influence of advertising.
How kids would benefit from an early indoctrination into social
networking (and the integrated advertising that comes with it) remains
to be seen, "because of the restrictions we haven’t even begun this
learning process," Zuckerberg said at the summit.
How might those restrictions be lifted?
Facebook
is ramping up its Washington, D.C. efforts. The social network
spent $230,000 on lobbying in the first quarter of 2011, five times more
than it did the year before,
the Huffington Post reports.
Facebook also hired "two outside lobbying firms and four new Washington
staff members, bringing its staff head count to 10 at its D.C. office,"
according to the
Wall Street Journal.
The
money Facebook is dropping in the beltway is sofa change compared to
Google's lobbying tab —$1.1 million in 2011's first quarter. Working to
influence laws to suit its needs is how big business rolls. As a
ginormous companies go, Facebook probably isn't
more or less evil than others.
It provides an amoral product for the purpose of making money and
gaining power, and tells its customers their needs come first.
Last
week, the Senate Commerce Committee pressed Facebook, as well as Apple,
Google and other Silicon Valley players, on data collection, with extra
ire aimed at kids' mobile and online privacy. Telling a Facebook rep,
"I want you to defend your company here because I don't know how you
can,"Sen. John D. Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said of CEO Zuckerberg, "I think
he was focused on how the business model would work. ... He wanted to
make it bigger and faster and better than anybody else ever had."
Yet
Facebook's cavalcade of bad PR from its ambivalent relationship with
our privacy is an ironic bonus for users, who prefer complaining
about the social network
on the social network, rather than quitting.
All
the same, Facebook seems to have gone through intense media training in
the last couple of years, presenting a user-focused company line
accompanied with the repeated message that total disclosure is totally
awesome for children and other living things.
Zuckerburg, once an
awkward public speaker, is increasingly smooth in public forums and
shares more of his personal information on the social network where he
expects you to freely share yours. Still, when one considers Facebook's
not-so-open PR attack on Google, the Facebook CEO's
much-hyped profile status change to "in a relationship" and the new
Facebook Page for his brand new puppy come off like Jedi mind tricks.
Same goes for the $100 million he pledged to the school system in
Newark, N.J. — though that's awesome they got it. At the education
summit, Zuckerberg just so happened to mention that "improving education
and making the Internet more open are two of his favorite dinnertime
topics," which also seems scripted.
Social media does have a place in the classroom, and organizations such as the
Ontario College of Teachers are
pioneering effective ways to do that. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and
other websites are now a student's main window on the world, and it is a
disservice to students
not to instruct them on how things work on the Internet.
Just
keep in mind, when Zuckerberg told the education summit that going
after the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act "will be a fight we
take on at some point," believe that he means it. Just maybe not in the
way you want him to.
More on the annoying way we live now:
