One thing about Facebook: It often target people’s emotions. For example, a Facebook friend posts a news article. Then, others feel emotional and rant about that same article. But I read one disturbing report. It has to do with Facebook emotions: Do they target venerable teens?
So this report leaked to The Australian. Supposedly, this report talked about how Facebook could target the emotions of millions of teenagers. They talked about looking for teens who want to ‘look good’ or ‘lose weight’ or ‘gain confidence’. All of this is to target them to advertisers. This is all according to this The Australian report. Also, Facebook can see when teens feel ‘useless’, ‘worthless’ or ‘like a failure’. So it sounds like they really are preying on Facebook emotions, especially on young teenagers.
But Facebook employees say not so. One calls this article misleading. They also say this was to study how people overall act on Facebook. They insists Facebook in no way targets venerable teens. But Facebook did apologize for this. Also, they say they broke no laws, or other legal rules, during this process. Facebook promises to improve it’s research. And they vow to take actions against anyone who abuses their research policies.
I don’t know what to say about this one. I understand the outrage. No company, no IT service company, or any other, should ever exploit the emotions of underage peoples. This goes double for those already feeling bad about themselves. That’s from a moral stand. But what about business? Let me explain. Advertisers always go after people’s vulnerabilities. It’s been that way for decades. Look at this early 1960s commercial; it preys on people’s social fears of being outcast because of bad breath. I hate to say it, but preying on people’s fears is a part of advertising. But doing it to young, struggling teenagers is something else. You have to draw the line. And to use teens already struggling with emotions is crossing that line. So I hope Facebook is sincere with this apology. Was this social research or were Facebook emotions purposely targeted?