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It has become fashionable among Facebook critics to squash the missteps while emphasizing the company’s size and dominance. At Thursday’s Senate hearing, Lawmakers punish Antigone DavisFacebook’s global head of security raises questions about the company’s addictive product design and its impact on billions of users. Most of the questions posed to Ms Davis were hostile, but as with most Big Tech hearings, there was a strange respect in the air, as if the legislators were asking: Hey, Godzilla, will you please stop crushing Tokyo?
But if these leaked documents prove anything, there’s a feeling Facebook isn’t like Godzilla. Internally, the company worries about losing power and influence, not gaining it, and its own research shows that many of its products do not develop organically. Instead, it will increasingly strive to improve its toxic image and prevent users from abandoning its apps in favor of more attractive alternatives.
You can see this vulnerability in: An episode of The Journal’s series that came out last week. Citing internal Facebook research, the article revealed that the company is developing strategies for how to market itself to children, describing young people as a “valuable but underused audience.” The article contained plenty of fodder for anger, including a presentation where Facebook researchers asked “if there is a way to exploit play dates to encourage word of mouth/growth among children.”
It’s a crazy-sounding question, but it’s also enlightening. Should a confident, thriving social media app “take advantage of their game history” or devise elaborate growth strategies targeting 10-year-olds? If Facebook isn’t so unstoppable, is it really promoting itself in between – and please read this with Steve Buscemi’s voice “How are you, fellow children?” meme — a “Life Coach for Adultery?”
The truth is that Facebook’s hunger for young users is more about eliminating apathy than dominating a new market. Facebook use among teenagers in the United States has been falling for years and is expected to drop further soon – internal researchers predict that daily use will drop 45 percent by 2023. For years, the core app has been losing market share to faster-growing competitors like TikTok, and younger users aren’t posting as much content as they used to.
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