Don’t be duped by Facebook, kids

Dear Editor: Over and over again, we are missing the point about Facebook Messenger for Kids. When experts talk about the negatives, they put their focus on data collection.

Although this is clearly one of the many issues with Facebook as shown by the ongoing Cambridge Analytica Scandal, Canada’s Aggregate IQ and the repeated missteps of Facebook, it is not the core issue of Facebook Kids Messenger.

While we sit around with our blinders on, focusing on data collection, we miss the obvious bigger issue at hand. This is beyond data collection, and it’s time we take the blinders off and see Facebook Messenger for what it really is.

Facebook Kids Messenger is the entry point to the funnel of the Facebook ecosystem, which includes the most mentally harming social media platform of Instagram.

As we talk about mental health and wellness, one quick look at Dr. Jean Twinge’s landmark trial of direct Instagram use on suicide rates and we all should be alarmed when Facebook begins to make the play for our kids.

Instagram is owned, operated, managed and controlled by Facebook, by Mark Zuckerberg.

Our children are not data points. Our children are not potential new users to contribute to Facebook’s growth. Our children are not part of a marketing plan. Facebook is a for-profit company that makes over 90 per cent of the revenues on advertising. The only thing Facebook has shown time and time again, is that they care about growth.

They grow and they grow and they grow, and then they apologize when we catch on to their tactics. This time and this app is no different. By allowing our kids to partake in Facebook Kids Messenger, we open the floodgates to the world of Facebook. It sets the stage and primes them to move onto other “grown-up” social media properties within the Facebook vortex.

Now you might say teens aren’t on Facebook, they are choosing other social media channels instead, and you’d be half right. Our teens are flocking to Instagram, which is part of the Facebook umbrella, and its effects on our teens are disastrous.

As a tech entrepreneur born and raised in Canada, I have spent the last nine years studying and creating tech for social good — looking at ways to keep kids out of the addictive loops of Facebook’s and other social media vortexes.

As a parent, it is now time for all parents to get very educated about the filter bubble technology that locks children and teens into vortexes that preys on their vulnerabilities. Facebook’s ecosystem as a whole is built for advertising and monetization.

It’s a giant mice maze and we the people are subjects of their continued experiments and regular apologies. Think about it from a pure business standpoint: Why would Facebook create an app if it’s not going to profit from it?

Facebook Kids Messenger is a longterm game, to pull new users into its ecosystem. This is beyond data, and as Canadians we should take a pass. Janice Taylor, CEO of Mazu, Kelowna