Meta’s what-if for tweens

TL;DR: New Mexico is nearly a month into a trial that accuses Meta of failing to protect young users from predators, based in part on internal communications from the past decade. In one of these documents, reported first by Tech Brew, Meta cited market research on children as young as 3 years old and brainstormed toy-like product features to attract preteen users.

What happened: In a draft presentation from 2016, titled “The Teens Team,” Meta included a chart on the social media usage of kids aged 3 through 15 based on the publicly available market research, and identified the 5–11 range—where online activity was lowest—as an “unmet need.” A few slides later, Meta listed a “Santa messaging bot,” a “Tamagotchi Pet,” and a “Kid Video App,” as ideas for engaging users under 13 (who are infamously not teens), potentially via a whole new child-focused platform: “For U13 kids, we should build Facebook One,” reads another slide. It also mentions growing time spent among U13 kids as a goal.

As a Meta attorney clarified in court yesterday, Facebook One was never actually created. The company’s only U13 product to date is Messenger Kids, a parentally controlled messaging platform launched at the end of 2017. While Instagram and Facebook prohibit kids under 13 from signing up, Meta reportedly estimated in 2015 that 4 million of them found their way in anyway (potentially including the plaintiff in the current California social media trial, who said she got on Instagram at age 9 during the mid-2010s).

In a statement to Tech Brew, a Meta spokesperson reiterated that: “We don’t allow people under 13 to use Instagram or Facebook. These concepts, which came from brainstorms over a decade ago, were never launched. They did help inform the 2017 launch of Messenger Kids, a dedicated, parent-managed service designed for kids to connect with family and friends.” Regarding the research on children as young as 3, the spokesperson added, “To be clear, this was publicly available research conducted by Ofcom, not Meta – it is wrong to suggest otherwise.”

Why this matters: Though Meta decided against Facebook One and those toy-like features, the fact that they were considered at all speaks to the company’s attitude toward underage engagement and adds to a growing pile of internal communications that seemingly run counter to Meta’s public messaging on youth safety. An internal 2018 Meta document from the California trial reportedly stated: “If we wanna win big with teens, we must bring them in as tweens.”

Fast-forward to the trial in New Mexico—Meta is not only arguing that it takes adequate steps to protect teen users, like building supervision tools for parents, but also that it’s not the only party responsible for their safety. Meta’s attorney said in opening statements seen on Courtroom View Network that the onus also lies with families, schools, state officials, and the child predators misusing Instagram and Facebook (yes, really).

What’s next: The trial is expected to last a few more weeks. Unlike in California, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg isn’t set to testify. New Mexico’s attorney general is seeking millions to hundreds of millions of dollars in civil penalties and said he wants to see Meta “broadly” implement “effective” age verification, which many tech companies are facing pressure to do (Apple recently rolled out age verification for apps rated 18+ in a few states and countries). New Mexico’s lawsuit is the first standalone, state-led case against Meta to reach a jury trial in the US, and there’s no telling yet how it’ll play out.

Generally speaking, meaningful regulation on child safety is a lengthy process in the US, even if there’s a wider federal push. After the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration set its first federal standards in 1971, it took 14 years for every state and the District of Columbia to pass laws requiring child seat belts. But we all know tech companies like to move fast and break things. Maybe this time they can fix things. —ML