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Comment by danpalmer | Hacker News Reader

This feels like it should be "obviously illegal", in the same way that it's illegal to market casinos, or loans to children, and illegal to market fast food to children in many countries.

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?

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In my country, marketing to children is illegal period. They have no monetary concept.

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...

What even qualifies as "marketing to children"? Can I not set up a tabloid with a lollipop on it?

Well in the UK, you may not advertise junk food to children. A tabloid aimed at adults could contain that ad for your lollipop. A comic, kid's magazine or website, or TV channel or kid's time slots may not.

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.

Thanks.

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?

I don't think reddit is a primary channel for kids so probably not, unless you specifically go into a reddit where it is known that a lot of children frequent and advertise there.

Are you being facetious?

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.

That’s all well and good but despite your indignation you haven’t actually explained what it means to market to children. Maybe I accept your premise that marketeers know how to single out specific demographics, but I don’t work in marketing so I have no idea what separates “marketing at children” versus just marketing in general.

There is not a specific black/white for this but if you have to ask you are usually on the wrong side.

For cases like this it's much easier to evaluate it case by case.

how do we create a society where this can't happen

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.

Put it in the bin, write a blog post about it, submit the post to hn.

More likely to happen: write a blog post about it on Medium, submit the post to HN, continue with life as usual.

> How do we solve this?

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.

> One would hope "the market will correct it"

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.

> I haven't heard any remotely viable way that any even halfway decent alternative to Facebook becomes possible.

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.

> 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?

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.

You missed regulation, unless it's meant to be implied from political action. The others are mostly ineffectual when there's billions in profit and marketing against them.

That's what I meant. Political action can mean regulating, as in not allowing tobacco ads, or taxing as in sugar taxes on soft drinks, or banning, as with certain drugs. Or it can mean subsidising or other encouragement outside of basic market forces.

Is it illegal to market toys to kids?

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.

It's illegal in many countries to market unhealthy food to kids, so while they can buy the candy, or ask to be bought it, kids TV channels for example won't have ads for them which limits the negative impact.

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.

What if it's a game that is good for mental development but has microtransactions, allowing them to unknowingly spend $1000s while also stimulating their brain?

Good mental development includes not being tricked in to spending other people's money, so I think such a game is impossible.

Practically speaking, if 8 year old walked into my store with their parents credit card, I wouldn't allow them to buy much more than a pack of gum.

> how do we create a society where this can't happen?

An incidence of zero is a difficult number to reach in any category. Everything is about tradeoffs.

> how do we create a society where this can't happen?

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.

I would argue that everyone is privileged enough to make that choice. Who are these people whose only choice is FB or starve? Surely in this field anyone who can get hired there can get hired elsewhere.

I'm not saying they'll starve, but I'm giving up nothing by avoiding adtech.

That's not true for everyone. They may not starve, but they may make much less or give up the resume boost.

I love the spirit of this comment: Facebook employees as poor pawns to be pitied.

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.

You seem to have misunderstood the spirit of the comment and then projected your own notions onto it.

What about offering more perks/options for whistle-blowers? I suppose the financial gain of whistle-blowing something like this is rather low... while the person will likely be barred from working at a lot of places (referring to an article on the Frontpage here a few days ago).

The financial gain of whistle-blowing something like this is pretty comparable to the societal value of whistle-blowing something like this. One random Facebook employee (of unknown rank and seniority) called a kid a whale; that doesn't matter in the slightest beyond its impact on an existing story. We can't incentivize people to run to the media with every chat log that looks bad out of context.

Really I think what is needed for that are far more robust protection against blacklisting of whistleblowers - although the devil is in the details given the general difficulty of proving employment discrimination.

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.

>how do we create a society where this can't happen?

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.

You have to have a focus on strong families. If the child has parents or guardians who are aware of what they're doing and will stop them from doing it then there wouldn't really be a problem in the first place at least with five year olds

So kids who lack strong families are left to the wind to be exploited? Really?

There will always be kids who don't get a strong family, whatever you do. You can certainly reduce this sort of thing (with adequate parental leave, financial parental support and broader societal compassion for parents (hard!)) but you can never reduce it to zero.

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.

You will also always get people targeting kids, even outside of the law. Reducing the number of kids without a family still might be a lot more effective than regulating the world into being as safe as an extended family (although both would be nice).

You still want the law to be there to go after the bad guys though. I agree any sensible solution will incorporate both approaches.

Are you sure it’s wise to put the onus solely on the parents? Some kids are born into families with crappy parents. Are they to be exploited at the whim of whatever corporate goal is out there due to their bad luck of having crappy parents?

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.

In this case (or the online casino case GP was suggesting), the parent should keep his/her credit card safe. How this not the parent's responsibility?

Have you ever misplaced something? Have you dealt with kids with curiosity or who desire something without thinking about the consequences? Facebook had an employee who gave the company specific steps it could easily take to prevent children from becoming whales. They refused to do this. Let’s not lose sight of just how shitty the people at Facebook who decided to do this are. This was a deliberate act on their part. The focus ought to be on them.

Here's the scenario :

  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

That's not just only the darkest of patterns it's also geared towards vulnerable kids. Intentionally and by design.

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.

> Kid asks parent if she's allowed to buy 10$ worth of gaming stuff

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.

The solution is for all parents to be aware of potential for dark patterns and to put the onus on them to refuse to let their kids play F2P games? It would be nice to live in a society in which the government doesn’t view actions that Facebook engages in as something every parent ought to be aware of. Caveat emptor works in some cases but not all of them. Your diligence in this situation is not something every parent has the foresight or willpower or knowledge to do. What Facebook did was morally reprehensible. There aren’t other parties to blame in this case.

> The solution is for all parents to be aware of potential for dark patterns and to put the onus on them to refuse to let their kids play F2P games?

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.

I do not wish to live in the type of society you appear to be comfortable with. I hope your view does not prevail.

How many people outside of HN even know what "F2P" is and how it works? In-app purchases aren't limited to F2P, either. Nor are they always a dark pattern.

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.

You're right that parents should be aware of what their children are playing, but that in no way justifies these deceptive practices by Facebook and other companies.

You say "the solution ...". I think there are others.

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.

Sounds like it would be about as successful as abstinence only sex education.

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.

The problem with that thinking was that those games were engineered in a way, where those kids couldn't even realize that they got fleeced for real money.

And Facebook handsomely and intentionally profited from that.

Did you read the article before launching straight into victim blaming? It’s not about supervision, it’s about dark patterns. Parents were aware of what their kids were doing, but weren’t aware of what FB was doing.

> You have to have a focus on strong families. If the child has parents or guardians who are aware of what they're doing and will stop them from doing it then there wouldn't really be a problem in the first place at least with five year olds

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.

It's called "fraud", and it is illegal in most if not all countries

Interestingly, it's legal to market colleges to 16/17 year olds, which almost certainly now involves taking out big loans.

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