Coca-cola was recently found guilty of this in the "food industry self governing organ" in Norway [1]. This is where complaints go first and if Coca-cola continues it can result in fines and whatnot.
They were using people from youtube channels that primarily makes videos for children in their own youtube channel videos.
[1] https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=no&tl=en&u=https%3...
From my now very vague memory of childhood TV, most ads for toys and games came in the evening news and soaps slots. When the adults were around too. Junk food was still OK, so kid's tv ads were for comics, and sweets, and sugar, oops I mean cereal: Sugar Puffs, Ricicles, Frosties etc.
I think it's a big mistake our regs on advertising toys to children have faded over the years. It's been shown time and again kids 12 and under can't understand commercial intent by ad industry research. So the real age may be higher.
If I post a video of my game on Reddit, am I marketing to children? There are a lot of children there, but it isn't a childrens' website. Does it matter if my game is strategy-/turn-based or animated with cute graphics?
Identifying demographics and targeting the marketing to them is the bread and butter of modern advertising. The entire justification for Google's and Facebook's mass consumer surveillance is to offer corporations more targeted advertising.
There are gray areas but if you're marketing to children, you know you're marketing to children.
For cases like this it's much easier to evaluate it case by case.
Don't hire developers who have worked for companies involved in these products. If you see Facebook on a resume, put it in the bin.
I don't know, but it seems absolutely absurd that Facebook or anyone else gives someone a hard time about refunding thousands of dollars of virtual goods. Especially when you consider Nordstrom's or Costco's return policies for physical goods!
I understand that you need to make a balance between easy refunds and running a business, but the COGS for a virtual good after development cost must be a fraction of a penny. Forcing parents to shell out thousands for their kids' actions in an online game is an insane policy. One would hope "the market will correct it", but maybe it does take legislation.
Puhleeze, I haven't heard any remotely viable way that any even halfway decent alternative to Facebook becomes possible. I see multiple posts a day bitching about the evils of FB, and then they come out yesterday with enormous revenue and user numbers.
The only way FB will slow down is if they are trustbusted.
Facebook is dominant in social media, but this is mobile gaming micro-payments. Google and Apple are also large in this space.
That said, I've little confidence this oligopoly will do the right thing without regulation.
This is something that happens all the time in all sorts of industries. It's sort of the thing that happens with free markets, people try various things, some are positive and some are negative.
So how do we not throw out the positives when mitigating the negatives? The answer is well known but imperfect. Open and public debate, journalistic investigation, political action.
A kid can walk into a store and buy as much candy as they want. The problem is that usually they don't have a credit card in their hands.
You can market toys to kids, but most toys aren't harmful to their health, mental wellbeing, or financial state. Arguably many kids toys promote good health, wellbeing, educational material, etc.
An incidence of zero is a difficult number to reach in any category. Everything is about tradeoffs.
FB employees can and should protest. I've gone as far as refusing to work for Facebook or any other adtech firm, but not everyone is privileged enough to make that choice.
That's not true for everyone. They may not starve, but they may make much less or give up the resume boost.
I share the sentiment as a corporate family-oriented programmer from a flyover state that has been heavily recruited by FANNGs. I don't like working for anyone, and being a teensy cog being ground up in a duct-taped together machine like that seems like torture.
If they couldn't keep their ethical fences up we would see far more impact from the same numbers of whistleblowers - criminals think they won't be caught.
By compromising on some other value we hold dear. These things are always trade-offs. Exploiting kids for money will be something we don't permit but ultimately tolerate.
We don't permit or tolerate accidental nuclear explosions as a contrasting example. We've create a society where that just doesn't happen or can't.
It’s more reasonable to say that parents ought to be on top of things and recognize that not all of them are. Thus it’s best to have other safeguards in place. Like make Facebook liable for its exploitive behavior.
Kid asks parent if she's allowed to buy 10$ worth of gaming stuff
Parent agrees, enters cc info, which is stored by FB without any warning
Games are designed in a way that you just click some cuddly icon without even realizing that you spend real money
In my book we're slowly in executives should wind up in jail territory when it comes to this evil carbunkel of a company without any morals, whatsoever.
So, stop right here. The solution is for parents to take a look at what their kids are playing and refuse to let them play F2P stuff. Mine aren't allowed anywhere near F2P games for the very reasons you outlined.
If you let them play F2P games, you know that inevitably the "pay" part is going to rear its ugly head repeatedly, even with perfectly-implemented controls that prevent the kid from taking your credit card for a ride. Every damn day they're going to ask you to buy that stupid in-game currency. Just say no before it ever starts. Otherwise, good luck.
My parents would buy me $10 of gaming stuff as a kid, like a month subscription to an MMO. Seems unreasonable to expect them to know there's some in-game button I can press that keeps charging their card. I played World of Warcraft for five years and still couldn't tell you if that feature existed in-game. How would my mother?
Seems like a tall order especially with all the other things a parent needs to stay on top of when raising kids. "Just don't make digital purchases" seems like a weak solution. Small measures like having to re-enter the CC control code after a time interval would really help parents.
The pattern is very simple. If the game has an in-app purchase along the lines of:
* Buy 10 gems: $0.99
* Buy 50 gems: $2.99
etc. then it's F2P garbage. Get rid of it. Take the five minutes to see what your kid is playing.
Otherwise, you're asking to ban these games altogether or make them 18+. All because it's too much trouble to see what they're actually doing with that iPad you throw in front of them.
Like have a default maximum spend in Facebook of $5 per app and $50 total, and require at least a double-lock to enable a higher level of payments.
Double lock: user confirms by ticking a box and by following a link in an email, say; then they get a message on their Facebook saying "you authorised higher spending for $game, up to $amount".
They could require pre-deposit, not allow use of credit cards, only allow spending if your credit rating is good, etc.. But none of this things increase mindless spending.
The reason we end up with laws covering stuff like this is because it's a lot easier to do that than fix the whole of society. I don't think anyone disagrees that every child having a caring and attentive parent would solve a lot of problems, but how do we get there? While we work that out, we can pass some laws to protect those children.
And Facebook handsomely and intentionally profited from that.
You're half right. We have to focus on strong families who would raise kids who, as adults, will have a strong enough moral compass to 1) say no to being involved in stuff like this stuff at Facebook, 2) blow the whistle when they find out about it, and 3) take urgent action when they hear the whistle being blown.
Because these children are the most vulnerable to begin with, they are the reason protections are required in law against e.g. marketing gambling products and junk food to children.
Given this, the only reason this is able to happen is because it flew under the radar for some time and then governments take time to legislate. By the time it actually becomes illegal, there could have been years of exploitation.
How do we solve this? Assuming that governments are slow moving (there can be benefits of this), and assuming that there will always be people with more flexible morals who will happily build these products, how do we create a society where this can't happen?