Facebook approves alcohol, vaping and gambling ads targeting 13-17 year olds

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-28/facebook-instagram-teenager-tageted-advertising-alcohol-vaping/100097590

by AFlyingBoom • 5 years ago

173 92 5 years ago

abc.net.au

xkeysc0re3• 5 years ago

I don't think there should be a minimum legal age for any of these activities. It's beyond clear that coddling helicopter government invoked disastrous consequences for Western society

sodality29• 5 years ago

Can you name some of those consequences in "western society" you believe were caused by "coddling helicopter gov't" actions, similar to regulating advertising addictive products to minors?

xkeysc0re3• 5 years ago

Yes. Society-wide we see an increased abdication of personal responsibility and general apathy. Increased mental illness. Severe feelings of loneliness and isolation brought about due to atomization by a government that's operated like a consultancy avoiding any liability or risk.

listless• 5 years ago

I completely agree. The amount of pearl clutching happening in this thread is fascinating. It reminds me very much of the 1980’s fundamentalist Christian house I was raised in. Very much like it.

minikites3• 5 years ago

How is society improved by letting 8 year olds gamble?

xkeysc0re3• 5 years ago

- Children learn applied mathematic principles earlier, such as odds and optimizations

- Gives children a chance to materially understand the meaning of a dollar

- Allows for demonstrations of propositional logic and formal reasoning

throwaway0a5e• 5 years ago

Would you rather find out your kid has a gambling problem (or addictive personality in general) at 8 or 16?

devenblake• 5 years ago

The first smoking rejected vs approved ad figure showed two pictures of people with smoke coming out of their mouths rejected and then one picture of someone holding an electric cigarette that was approved. The e-cig wasn't recognizeable to me, I'm not sure if those are great comparisons.

And with the second figure - with the gambling, drinking, and dating ads, I don't really get how the final one could be construed absolutely as a dating ad. "Find your gentleman" could be a service for connecting polite but lonely friends.

If these are representative of ads that they got approved and disapproved I think their methodology was flawed. It would be easier to look at examples of advertisements that explicitly minor-owned accounts actually saw on their feed that advertise adult services.

sodality29• 5 years ago

"Find your gentleman" could be a service for connecting polite but lonely friends.

The money emoji and "gentlemen" is clearly associating it with sugar daddies. That would be universally understood in that age cohort, and in the higher part of that range, probably even clicked on often.

There's the more mild ads, sure, but the worse ones are really where the issues lie, like the blatant gambling ones.

carpedimebagjoe2• 5 years ago

Unsurprising because FB is all about maximizing profits at society's expense. They'd happily get into human trafficking and child prostitution if they could get away with it. At this point, they have instead created hundreds of millions of attention addicts, outrage consumers, and manufactured sentiments for the purposes of commercial advertising. Oh, and the occasional genocide [0].

It's also curious that, to this day, cigarette companies target children even younger in developing nations. This also is terrible.

0. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-46105934

echlebek• 5 years ago

My prediction: there will never be a bottom for facebook.

WillDaSilva• 5 years ago

Companies - specifically large public for-profit companies - are amoral entities solely concerned with maximizing their profits. That Facebook acts seemingly without any morals isn't all that surprising.

rblatz• 5 years ago

This is such a “le late stage capitalism” sentiment that I see posted all the time. It completely misrepresents the responsibility of a public company to operate in its shareholders’ best interest.

nemo44x4• 5 years ago

If I were a shareholder I’d only expect them to operate within the law. Or if the CEO was unsure then hold a shareholder vote (though I’d rather the CEO do their job and not bother us).

In the end it is the democratically elected people’s job to make the laws in the public’s interest.

Ban advertising to minors.

t-writescode8• 5 years ago

I wonder if this is automated. Somebody wants to advertise _something_ to a demographic and Facebook doesn't have any sort of checks in place; or, they do have checks, but the ads lie about it and Facebook doesn't validate it.

I wonder how many requests for advertising to a given group they have. I imagine it's a scary high number.

adjkant2• 5 years ago

It's absolutely automated, but it begs the question, should it be allowed to be, particularly when dealing with minors? It seems crazy this case slipped through to exist when Facebook has been around for so long.

t-writescode8• 5 years ago

The associated comments that are downvoted seem to imply that Facebook intended for this to happen and it wasn't just automation and bureaucracy.

Should it be stopped? If it violates the law, absolutely; but, we should recognize it for what it is, not some nefarious, evil plot to harm the young of multiple nations.

edoceo4• 5 years ago

I hope this means they'll re-eval their policy on 21+ cannabis related ads. huge market potential

29athrowaway2• 5 years ago

Cannabis is illegal at a federal level.

srswtf123• 5 years ago

So is alcohol under 21?

Edit: looks like I learned something; thanks!

edoceo4• 5 years ago

so is minors gambling (which is this case) - and also these ads never ran. so no change for cannabis and we can put our pitchforks down.

edoceo4• 5 years ago

this part seems important:

""Citing ethical concerns, Reset Australia did not pay for the advertisements and they did not run on the Facebook platform, but the group believes they had passed the company's internal checks""

sodality29• 5 years ago

I wonder what would have happened if they had? Maybe redirect it to a blank page? Might not have passed an ethics board (but hey, who knows nowadays!) if they actually advertised it though.

fallingknife• 5 years ago

I guess I just don't really care if teenagers are doing the same things I did as a teenager.

sodality29• 5 years ago

My father grew up when it was incredibly common in high school to smoke a lot of cigarettes. Many in his class have since died of lung cancer. In my high school, vapes are the most dangerous thing I've seen. Generally, you hope the next generation grows up a little bit better than the previous one.

I think alcohol/vaping/gambling ads are a net negative when advertised to minors, causing addiction in a lot of cases.

adamsvystun• 5 years ago

While it is obviously unethical, is advertising alcohol, vaping and gambling to 13-17 year olds illegal in Australia?

Asking because I am not sure if Facebook should be making the shots here on what is legal or illegal to advertise. This is best handled through government.

tdonovic2• 5 years ago

Yes. It is absolutely illegal. Not sure anywhere where this would be legal. Ie. "TV or radio ads about alcohol cannot target children. They also should not be irresponsible in targeting adults." https://www.acma.gov.au/ads-alcohol-tobacco-or-therapeutic-g...

Edit: changed the example

nemo44x4• 5 years ago

What does that have to do with this?

I do agree though and would go further and make it illegal to show ads to anyone whose profile states they are under 18.

nemo44x4• 5 years ago

Agreed. Instead of expecting a for-profit company to decide what’s ok we should simply pass laws that makes advertising to people under 18 illegal.

For instance if your social media account says you are less than 18 then it should be illegal to show any ad to you.

This will have the additional benefit of internet communication technology companies having to rethink kids as a profit center.

cj• 5 years ago

Banning advertising to kids under 18 is a pretty interesting idea.

You obviously can't completely ban it, since kids under 18 would still have access to cable TV, and therefore advertisments.

But I could see a system where -targeting- kids under 18 would be banned, whereas advertising as a whole is not illegal for < 18 so long as the advertisements kids are seeing aren't specifically targeted only at minors.

Erik816• 5 years ago

That is not how ethics and laws interact. The law sets a minimum standard that can be enforced by the government with a penalty. No matter what Facebook does, they are not deciding what is or is not legal.

Ethically, you often have an obligation to do more than the bare legal minimum in order to not be a horrible person.

scomp2• 5 years ago

When watching TV during a football (Aussie rules football not soccer) game I see probably 15-20 gambling ads and so would the 0-17 year olds watching. There is also an ad with Matthew McConaughey drinking whiskey, although im not sure if that's during prime time or late hours. Never seen a smoking or vaping ad though.

behringer• 5 years ago

Yes but they can't run alongside children's programming or feature themes that are intended for children. Eg, they can't target 13 to 17 year olds even if it's during sports

tw04• 5 years ago

When watching TV during a football (Aussie rules football not soccer) game I see probably 15-20 gambling ads and so would the 0-17 year olds watching.

There's a huge difference between targeting an age group and the age group being exposed by association.

If you saw ads on the Sunday morning cartoons for whiskey and gambling, you could rightly say they are targeting children.

Ads put on during a football game that targets 25-50 year olds that may happen to have younger viewers != targeting those younger viewers.

Facebook is targeting 13-17 year olds.

shakna• 5 years ago

That's... A complicated question. It does appear to be a breach of ABAC Responsible Alcohol Marketing Code (3b) [0], but the ABAC would only review it if a complaint was raised.

A complaint first has to be raised with Ad Standards, who undertake ethical review on a case-by-case basis.

That is, it is generally illegal to market to those who are underage, but it is not generally illegal to display such advertising in a space where those who are outside of the target audience.

The usual legal process is to review individual ads, and those creating the adverts are the ones who end up in trouble. An entire marketplace (like Facebook) deciding that marketing to minors is okay is untested waters, because each individual advert would normally be ruled illegal so why the hell would the market allow it?

[0] https://www.abac.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/ABAC-Resp...

fy20• 5 years ago

In my country (not AU) they banned alcohol advertising completely a couple of years ago, because alcoholism is a big problem here. So instead of advertising alcohol, the breweries now advertise their alcohol free drinks. They just changed "Carlsberg" to "Carlsberg Alcohol Free" on the same ads, and boom it's allowed.

SirSourdough• 5 years ago

Reminds me of cigarette advertising in Formula 1, where brands like Phillip Morris have constantly tried to find new ways to sneak imagery and color schemes onto the cars that are reminiscent of their branding despite cigarette ads being banned in the early 2000s. There have been cars the looked exactly like a Marlboro pack (red car, white chevron rear wing), sponsored by Marlboro, but without the actual word Marlboro that have been allowed to race.

They even created a new entity (Mission Winnow) in 2018 which is purportedly an initiative “to create engagement around the role of science, technology and innovation as a powerful force for good in any industry”, whatever that means. Conveniently, MW has the same color scheme and a suspiciously similar "M" logo to Marlboro, and surprise, they've been a title sponsor of the Ferrari cars since, though they didn't use the branding in 2020 after countries started investigating whether they were flaunting the ad ban.

condomhacker2• 5 years ago

Shouldn’t they be blaming the advertisers instead of Facebook?

Facebook has too many things to look at from pornography, violence, cornona virus, election integrity and now even this?

sodality29• 5 years ago

The advertisements were never shown- they were just added to their internal systems and were (thought to be) approved.

The findings were revealed in a report, released today, by lobby group Reset Australia — the local arm of a global initiative working to "counter digital threats to democracy".

nemo44x4• 5 years ago

Pass laws to make it illegal to advertise to people under 18.

We somehow expect FB to arbitrate but that’s just not possible. It isn’t even their fault in the end - they operate within legal boundaries.

We should make it unlawful to advertise to people under 18 and prosecute offenders, harshly.

blonde_ocean• 5 years ago

How in the hell can you expect advertisement in the 21st century to not reach minors? We might as well legislate that all minors must wear blindfolds at all times, or be blinded as they’re born.

hellbannedguy• 5 years ago

Facebook brags about real identities only. If anyone could figure out an algorithm that identifies minors it's that company.

They might not get 100% accuracy, but pretty close, especially if Marky thought the fine might make him less wealthy.

minikites3• 5 years ago

Better not do anything at all, then.

runarberg3• 5 years ago

There is a pretty stark difference between being exposed to ads and being targeted by ads. Ad mascots like Tony the Tiger selling sugared serials would never fly in the EU as it is obviously targeting children.

I’m pretty sure parent is referring to the latter.

bryan_w• 5 years ago

Pass laws to make it illegal to advertise to people under 18.

Yes, let's get ads out of cartoons and out of newspapers that carry comics sections. I'm sure that will go well.

runarberg3• 5 years ago

It is already restricted or illegal in large part of the world, including the EU and the UK.

It was going pretty well actually but has been watered down in the recent years with the proliferation of American content that often contains ad hidden in the content it self.

So if the elephant in the room here (USA) would step up their game and ban ads to children, it would unironically go just fine.

tbwriting• 5 years ago

Drinking harms the adolescent brain.

Why comment about how “it’s legal there” or “teens already do it” or “it’s really the advertisers’ fault”? Where does defending Facebook’s behavior get you?

op03• 5 years ago

You get job offers from FB recruiters.

t-writescode8• 5 years ago

Because when condemning someone's actions, you need to be sure to condemn what they've actually done wrong and not things that you wouldn't condemn someone else for if they weren't Facebook.

aierou• 5 years ago

I think it's important to recognize that Reset Australia is a traditional media lobby group, and that this report amounts to a zero-day attack on Facebook's automated advertising system. Facebook would never choose to advertise these products to children for a variety of reasons. Reading the sentiment in this thread, when exactly did we create the expectation that Facebook (or any social media entity) must execute as a perfect moral system?

lamontcg• 5 years ago

They have a nasty problem of behaving completely amorally until someone points it out.

TedShiller• 5 years ago

Why? Because money

jollybean• 5 years ago

Without a link to the actual report, which hopefully contains more information, anyone who's ever spent $5 running a campaign on FB would know this is a little suspicious.

You can upload content to your hearts content, but ads are not actually 'approved' until they running.

And there's no way to actually 'target' without running an ad ... which they didn't do ... so ...

If they were looking for hard evidence, they could have in fact put $5 into FB, and put the ad 'live' and simply taken it down once it was approved, but before it received any views (though technically that might not be perfectly possible, it is pragmatically possible).

It's possible to mine data sets, and do queries on userbase behaviours etc, but none of that would be in the context of a specific ad being run. I think this is also what the article alludes to, and it crosses streams with the other part of the story and probably causes confusion.

All of that aside, the notion that FB, a $800B company is going to risk that by blatantly running ads for alcohol to minors where it is clearly illegal kind of defies the logic of a very self-interested entity like Facebook.

How much money would they make from that, while risking sanctions and major fallout? Probably almost none, as the buyers of ads would probably be doing something illegal, how many breweries are going to be running ads to 14 year olds? Basically none, so there's no money in this activity, and only downside.

More appropriately, it would help the case if someone, somewhere in Australia actually found FB ads that are targeting children.

Finally, there is nowhere them to hide, making the claims a little more suspicious. Everyone on the planet, can right now (including you reading this), pop open Facebook, upload an ad and try to run it. Judge, police, regulators, you, me, anyone in the world can just 'see for ourselves' at a moments notice, at any time, with less than 5 minutes without any need for complicated research - find out if FB is really enabling vaping ads to teenagers. It seems odd that something so illegal would be so out in the open, visible to everyone.

Edit: not 'defending' FB here, just calling out what I see as possibly a big inconsistency and problems with truthiness.

I've never been a fan of Facebook, I loathed them from the start, but facts are facts, and this story does not pass the smell test, we'll need to see more data.

There are probably a ton of legit things to deal with on FB, I could be wrong, but I seriously doubt they are running vaping ads to kids.

tdfx• 5 years ago

Yes, this reads like it was written by someone who has never run a real Facebook ad. Facebook routinely accidentally blocks legitimate advertisers from running normal, compliant ads, and there's a massive underground devoted to beating Facebook's algorithms to get non-compliant ads running. This looks like they just got lucky with a few ad sets, and since they never set them active, it looks like they might've not been approved, anyway.

dvfjsdhgfv2• 5 years ago

there's a massive underground devoted to beating Facebook's algorithms to get non-compliant ads running.

And they're extremely successful - I see several such ads every day. They vary from microdosing (using drugs is illegal here) to obvious scams. It looks FB completely got rid of manual review and decided algorithms can approve ads. And it failed spectacularly because any algorithm can be gamed by a creative human. Who is held accountable for it? Nobody. Something that has negative influence on others lives is presented as just a glitch in the system, not a result of an ethical decision "Yes, we can accept some percentage of scams as long as we maximize value from serving ads."

RileyJames• 5 years ago

Here is a link to the report: https://au.reset.tech/uploads/resettechaustralia_profiling-c...

Inline with your point, the report states that the ads were not actually run, which kind of invalidates their argument. They state they were ‘approved’.

But their motivation was likely to get a specific headline across the media, and that appears to be working.

runarberg3• 5 years ago

Not saying you’re wrong, but this feels like a pretty convenient separation for facebook to hide behind.

A good journalist has a pretty strict code of ethics that they won’t cross under any circumstances. Getting an ad approved without running it doesn’t cross the code of ethics for most journalists, but running it would (even for 5 minutes; don’t blame them, selling gambling to random kids is bad for any amount of minutes, especially if you can’t go and debrief your victims).

I think getting an ad like this approved is news worthy in and of it self, even though nothing illegal nor immoral was directly demonstrated. What was demonstrated is the potential for this to happen, and that what you would expect to be a safeguard against this (an approval process) is either not a safeguard at all or is insufficient. Either way it is news worthy (albeit the latter case a lot more news worthy; but harder to investigate).

The problem with facebook is that it is so personalized and it is really hard for a third party to investigate any other person’s experience. For a journalist investigating what goes on for other people is hard at best. Seeing what gets approved is one way of investigating.

spicyramen• 5 years ago

People without kids probably agree to this

akomtu2• 5 years ago

Pension funds demand more profits, FB complies and sells teenagers (i.e. the nation's future) to the alcohol and gambling industry. This is pretty much what America is about these days: the top 1% is milking the bottom 50% and hardly anybody cares about the future.

wait_a_minute• 5 years ago

Tax the billionaires more tbh

magnetowasright• 5 years ago

Shameful that the ABC doesn’t know the difference between teenager’s and teenagers’.

The article briefly mentions that the relatively restrictive laws around traditional advertising haven’t kept up with social media. I think that should be the focus of the article; we know companies (including those wanting to advertise and advertisement platforms) will do absolutely everything they are not forbidden from doing if it brings them more money. They might still do the forbidden things anyway if the punishment isn’t substantial. They won’t stop doing this out of the goodness of their pockets, I mean hearts. It’s an unfortunate reality for most of us, but it’s how things work currently.

We should be holding our politicians accountable for their total lack of digital awareness and their general willingness to prioritise money and power over their constituents. With the Murdoch media profiting from and controlling the narrative, the ABC is one major outlet that might be able to switch people on to these issues, but they turn out this ungrammatical drivel instead.

threesmegiste• 5 years ago

I think some paying fb haters out there. All Similar allegations are made much more often by other social media networks. someone is hiding something.

Facebook approves alcohol, vaping and gambling ads targeting 13-17 year olds

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