Unsealed complaint says Meta 'coveted' under-13s and deceives the public about age enforcement | The unredacted document reveals more details from a lawsuit filed against Meta by 33 states in October.

yoz , 7 months ago

Logical outcome should be break the company or shut it down but boomers gonna slap a $1 million fine on a $100 billion company.

TseseJuer , 7 months ago

33 states lol… the world is a stage

OldWoodFrame , 7 months ago

Never a good headline to get, “[Entity] coveted under-13s”

lemann , 7 months ago

Makes Meta sound absolutely disgusting, as they indeed are

MedicPigBabySaver , 7 months ago

Ahh, yes. Another moment of big business needing to addict and retain customers.

No logical person (we’re desperately running out of them) would have any doubt that tweens/teens are priority targets on EVERY social media platform.

wizardbeard , 7 months ago

In addition to this, I saw some nieces ~8 and ~4 years old on Thanksgiving, and their parents have given them tablets (because that’s a fucking great idea). Watching them play games on them with ads after every single level, and watching their reaction to the ads, hammered in that they are the target audience for the inane mobile ad mess.

Obviously the ad tactics work on some adults, but they are pure crack for the young kids. “I don’t know why they keep showing us these people who don’t know how to play the game! Mama, can I play (blah)?”

jayrodtheoldbod , 7 months ago

There’s a fella on YouTube who talks about game development and stuff. He has a well-respected game out somewhere, and he dropped a bombshell that you probably need to hear.

They took their game, on a PC and consoles, out to some sort of convention to show it off and get some feedback from potential customers, namely, young children, Alphas, 6-12 ish.

He said that every single one of them ignored keyboards and game controllers, shoving them out of the way, not even understanding what they were for, and immediately started swiping their fingers on the screens, assuming they were touchscreens. So yeah.

theherk , 7 months ago

That’s not an indictment of advertisement though, but a function of platforms encountered most commonly which has of course followed this trend.

It doesn’t really say much negative except that we’re old.

Buddahriffic , 7 months ago

I take issue with that “we’re old” conclusion, not because I’m not old (I am), but because it implies touch screens are a replacement for keyboard/mouse or controllers in gaming. They aren’t.

They limit input to various touch actions on the screen, lack precision (in a way that varies depending on your finger size), don’t give tactile feedback (which is an important part of natural touch and helps with the precision thing), and obscure whatever is on the display when you put your finger there to touch it.

Exposing kids to good games might reduce their susceptibility to ads for shitty games. Also teaching them that just because you see “someone” failing in an obvious way doesn’t mean you need to go and prove you can succeed. It’s just bait.

theherk , 7 months ago

It implies no such thing. Aside from being tongue in cheek it meant only that it is more common for them to encounter touch screen interfaces than other traditional HID’s. Which is covered by a lot of data. It may well be that keyboard and mouse are better devices.

All I’m saying is if some kid was shown a rotary phone and said they didn’t know what it is, it would be a bit silly to be surprised by that.

anon_8675309 , 7 months ago

Color me shocked!

sbv , 7 months ago

thou shalt not covet thy user’s underage children

Alchemy , 7 months ago

We all know why that one didn’t make it to the original list.

sbv , 7 months ago

I’d say it’s too soon, but it’s been millennia at this point.