Newly discovered revealed are shedding light on Facebook’s marketing goals, including its plans to target new users as young as 6.
Facebook is increasingly under fire by consumers and lawmakers alike, accused of putting profits ahead of societal good. Frances Haugen, a former product manager, has blown the whistle on some of the company’s most toxic behavior, shining a spotlight on just how much the company ignores the damage its platform causes in the pursuit of profits.
According to NBC News, one of the documents Haugen’s attorney provided to the SEC and Congress contained an internal blog post that proposed targeting new age groups below 13 years old. One of the age groups included children as young as 6 to 9 years old.
“These five age groups can be used to define education, transparency, controls and defaults that will meet the needs of young users,” read the Facebook post.
Needless to say, critics are jumping on the revelation as the latest example of how much Facebook cannot be trusted.
“Facebook and Instagram have repeatedly shown that they simply can’t be trusted when it comes to the well-being of children and teens,” said James Steyer, founder and CEO of Common Sense Media, a nonprofit focused on the intersection of children and technology. “They need to focus on cleaning up their existing platforms instead of trying to hook more children to their addictive platforms at younger and younger ages.”