Facebook sorry for tracking insecure teens

"We care deeply about the people who use our services" and "understand the importance of ensuring their safety and wellbeing." Facebook

AUSTRALIA: Facebook Australia has apologised and said that it will discipline senior staff after they described how the social media site can target young people with advertising when they were feeling ‘‘worthless’’ or ‘‘insecure’’.

The company produced a confidential document that explained how its technology was able to identify ‘‘moments when young people need a confidence boost’’ and then tailor commercials towards them.

The document was used in a presentation to an Australian bank and showed how the advertising-driven site was able to mine its database to identify the moods of young people, The Australian newspaper reported.

By monitoring posts, pictures, interactions and internet activity in real time, Facebook could work out when its users, some as young as 14, felt ‘‘stressed’’, ‘‘defeated’’, ‘‘overwhelmed’’, ‘‘anxious’’, ‘‘nervous’’, ‘‘stupid’’, ‘‘silly’’, ‘‘useless’’ or a ‘‘failure’’, the document, prepared by two of Facebook Australia’s senior staff, said.

After the revelations Facebook issued an apology and said that it had opened an internal investigation, admitting that it was wrong to target children - but it refused to disclose whether the practice was employed elsewhere.

‘‘We care deeply about the people who use our services’’ and ‘‘understand the importance of ensuring their safety and wellbeing’’, it said.

The document claimed that Facebook was not only able to detect sentiments but could understand how emotions were communicated at different points during a young person’s week.

‘‘Anticipatory emotions are more likely to be expressed early in the week, while reflective emotions increase on the weekend,’’ the document disclosed. ‘‘Monday-thursday is about building confidence; the weekend is for broadcasting achievements.’’

Information available to advertisers included an individual’s relationship status, location, number of Facebook friends and how often they accessed the platform via mobile or desktop.

Facebook responded with a statement. ‘‘We have opened an investigation to understand the process failure and improve our oversight,’’ it read. ‘‘We will undertake disciplinary and other processes as appropriate.

‘‘Facebook only permits research following a rigorous procedure of review whenever sensitive data, particularly data involving young people or their emotional behaviour, is involved. This research does not appear to have followed this process.’’

As the tech and publishing company rolls out products on a regional and global basis, it could be mining data identifying children’s moods around the world with these methods, The Australian said.

The document laid out how the world’s biggest social network gathered psychological insights on 6.4 million ‘‘high schoolers’’, ‘‘tertiary students’’, and ‘‘young Australians and New Zealanders in the workforce’’.

The document included information on when young people exhibited ‘‘nervous excitement’’, and emotions related to ‘‘conquering fears’’.

The Australian reported that the tactics appeared to breach the guidelines set out in the Australian Code for Advertising and Marketing Communications to Children, which seeks to maintain a high sense of social responsibility.

The engine that drives Facebook’s opaque advertising sales system is built on algorithms; sets of complex computer instructions that Facebook’s engineers use to mine personal information about the preferences of a worldwide audience of 1.86 billion users. - The Times