As a parent, my job my – responsibility – is to look after the well-being of my children. I have a 11yr old, a 15yr old, and a 19yr old. Yeah, my 19 year old is still my kid to me, and always will be. But no matter their age, I strive extensively to keep up with technology that they are using. I want to make sure that what they are using, is:
1. Safe for them to use. It won’t somehow hurt them emotionally, physically, and spiritually either now, or sometime in the future.
2. Age Appropriate. The content that might seem suitable for my 19yr old to consume doesn’t necessarily mean it’s safe for my 11yr old.
3. Secure. With so many applications and devices requiring personal information to operate, no matter how little it may be, any misuse of P.I.I. (Personal Identifiable Information) could harm not only my child, but the whole family.
I can only hope that others our there, those who read my blog, are as diligent as I am with protecting their children. And this is why I feel the need to bring to light something that many may not be aware of.
Last month, the CEO of Facebook, big Markie Mark, signed off on a new initiative code-named Project Amplify. The purpose? To use the site’s news feed, it’s most important real estate, to show people positive stories about the social network. Why in the world would Facebook need to reshape it’s image in the eyes of its users? Well, just think. For years, Facebook has confronted crisis after crisis involving issues with user’s privacy, misinformation, and hate speech on it’s platform. Heck, disgruntled Facebook employees have added to the fire by speaking out and leaking documents against it’s employer. And this brings us to why i’m putting together this post.
Just recently, the Wall Street Journal published articles showing Facebook has known all along about the harm it’s platform is causing. Facebook has repeatedly found that its photo-sharing app is harmful to a significant percentage of teenagers. Say what? Yes, you read this correctly. Facebook published an internal document detailing how dangerous Instagram is for many young teenage girls. The Journal cited internal Facebook studies over the past three years that examined how Instagram affects its young user base, with teenage girls being most notably harmed. Oh, and BTW the company is in the process of releasing a version of instagram just for kids.
The Journal cited Facebook studies over the past three years that examined how Instagram affects its young user base, with teenage girls being most notably harmed. As a father of two teenage girls, well, one teenage and another almost teenage, reading this article blew my mind and I imediately flipped into ‘dad mode’. What is this ‘dad mode’? It’s when adrenaline shoots threw my body and I began to start making changes and decisions without first thinking them through. Thankfully, I stopped before going terribly to far.
According to the Journal, the features that the social media company identified as the most harmful are part of its key makeup. Researchers warned Instagram’s Explore page, which serves users curated posts from a wide range of accounts, can push users into content that can be harmful. The app also has a culture of posting only the best pictures and moments, and it operates as an addictive product.
More than 40% of Instagram’s users are 22 years old and younger. Almost half of its user base! Facebook’s internal documentation shows the company’s failure to protect children on Instagram – especially young girls – is , careless, abhorrent, horrifying, and outright dangerous, and it’s been going on for years. Facebook has no business developing additional social platforms for our kids when they can’t be trusted to keep their current affairs in order!
Just recently, Gizmodo published an article quoting WSJ regarding children. Internal documents obtained by the Journal now reveal that Facebook
formed a special team to study children and ponder ways in which they
could be monetized. One such document is said to refer to children
between the ages of 10 and 12 (“tweens”) as a “valuable but untapped
audience.” Another suggests “leveraging playdates” as means to drive
Facebook’s “growth.”
Another issue that has been uncovered by WSJ via leaked documents, is the existence of xCheck. What is this? Good question. Because until recently, no one really knew what it was. But in fact, it’s an internal system used to exempt Facebook’s high profile users from some, if not all of Facebooks rules. Users were identified for additional scrutiny based on criteria such as being “newsworthy”, “influential or popular” or “PR risky”, the Wall Street Journal found. By 2020 there were 5.8 million users on the XCheck list, according to the newspaper.
When people would ask me why my family and I don’t use Facebook, I would try and dodge the question. I knew the perils of social media from way back when MySpace used to be a thing. Facebook is good for connecting you to people from your past. But you know what? Sometimes it’s better for people I knew in the past, to stay in the past. Now, when i’m asked why we don’t use Facebook, i’m going to proudly stand up tall, make eye contact and say “Because it’s dangerous. I don’t want my kids to use it, so why would I”?
