Facebook studied how to win over young kids

Facebook formed a special team to study the long-term business opportunities presented by children, calling them a ‘valuable but untapped audience’, leaked internal research has revealed.

The social media giant conducted extensive research into how it could appeal to audiences under 13 and introduce products to them. Picture: AFP

Facebook formed a special team to study the long-term business opportunities presented by children, calling them a “valuable but untapped audience”, leaked internal research has revealed.

The social media giant conducted extensive research into how it could appeal to audiences under 13 and introduce products to them, and even proposed tailoring some of its features to children aged four and below.

“With the ubiquity of tablets and phones, kids are getting on the internet as young as six years old. We can’t ignore this and have a responsibility to figure it out,” the report, revealed by The Wall Street Journal, says.

One Facebook team conducted interviews with children to see if there was a way to encourage them to use its Messenger Kids app when they were socialising with friends in person, according to an internal 2019 presentation titled Exploring playdates as a growth lever.

Messenger Kids was launched by Facebook in 2017 as a video calling and chat app designed for users aged six to 12 with parental controls, including overview of their children’s contacts.

Facebook acknowledged that the language it used around playdates “was an insensitive way to pose a serious question and doesn’t reflect our approach to building the app”. It said the presentation was part of its research into understanding how families and children were using the Messenger Kids app to improve their experiences.

The leaked documents also show that a senior researcher at Facebook suggested the platform should tailor its features to six age brackets: adults; late teens aged 16 and above; teens aged 13 to 15; tweens aged 10 to 12; children aged five to nine; and those aged “zero to four”.

Facebook said this was simply a framework that international policymakers had been advocating, with the age bands used by the children’s code set up this month by the Information Commissioner’s Office. The age appropriate design code lays out 15 standards online services need to follow to create a “better internet” for children. Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, this week said it was “pausing” plans to release a children’s version of its photo-sharing app.

The Times