Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia
[permission to reproduce granted if
authorship is acknowledged]
Most
people know, “if the service is free, you are the product.” Facebook and
Instagram are two of the many applications that people use that are free. Facebook’s
business model depends upon harvesting browsing history, location data,
consumer behaviour, and other information from users who use its apps. Zuckerberg
has been compared
with J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI director who infamously kept records on countless
individuals. In 2019, Facebook was fined £500,000 in the UK for
its part in the 2016 Cambridge Analytica scandal where personal data was
harvested from millions of Facebook users for targeting political messaging.
The
US National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG) recently sent Mark
Zuckerberg a letter
asking him to cancel plans to launch a version of Instagram designed for children
under the age of 13. In their letter, the attorneys general remind Zuckerberg
of Facebook’s poor record of protecting the privacy and safety of children who
use its platform.
The
letter from NAAG refers to a
similar plea from the campaign for a commercial-free childhood (ccfc) that
cites research on the impact of social media on children and youth:
A growing body of research demonstrates that excessive use of digital devices and social media is harmful to adolescents. Instagram, in particular, exploits young people’s fear of missing out and desire for peer approval to encourage children and teens to constantly check their devices and share photos with their followers. The platform’s relentless focus on appearance, self-presentation, and branding presents challenges to adolescents’ privacy and wellbeing.
The
specific research to which ccfc refers shows the links between excessive
screen use and a lengthy list of risks:
obesity, decreased happiness, decreased quality of sleep, depression,
suicidal ideation, bullying, pressure upon Adolescent girls to “post sexualized
selfies as a means of generating attention and social acceptance from their
peers,” and more. Although the protection of children’s privacy has received
attention from time to time from organizations like NAAG and ccfc, it has not
received the attention it deserves.
Facebook’s
business model is being threatened by Apple’s new operating system. The new
iPhone (iOS14.5) has turned off a feature that follows users around on the
internet by default. That means that apps (like Facebook) will need to seek permission
from the phone’s user to use the tracking technology. Apple, of course, makes
its revenue from selling people new phones and from the purchases users make
from “in-app advertising”.
Spending
time online has become a ‘way of life’ for most of us during the pandemic.
Online learning during COVID-19 has dramatically increased the time that children
and youth spend on computers, tablets, and smartphones.
Online
engagement has been encouraged by schools and school boards eager to ensure the
continuity of learning. School Boards have licensed the use of a variety of platforms
for communicating with and instructing students (learning management systems).
Students are not obligated to use the platforms provided by school boards. If
they (more likely their parents) opt out, boards are obligated to make
provision for alternatives. But I suspect that few parents opt out.
Most
of the student data generated using online learning management systems is
stored in the “cloud” (not on the school’s or board’s servers). It is not clear
to me how the learning management systems use the data they store. Are the data
linked to other data that they or related corporate entities hold? Are they using
the data to develop other tools that they can market to schools or school
boards?
In
September 2020, the BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association (FIPA) released
a report titled Troubling
clouds: Gaps affecting privacy protection in British Columbia’s K-12 education
system. The report was written by a
friend, lawyer Matthew Levine. Levine raises important question about whether student
privacy is adequately protected from breaches or from exploitation and offers
recommendations for improvements.
The
corporations providing online learning management applications are not
philanthropies. They are not giving something away without the expectation of
some return. Whether it is collecting a fee for each user, instilling a
positive identification with its brand, collecting data for marketing purposes,
or manipulating consumer preferences, the cynic in me thinks about it as corporate
grooming of children and youth.
Mark
Zuckerberg abandoning his plan to create an under-13 Instagram at the behest of
the NAAG or ccfc is like expecting Midas to divest himself of his gold. As my granddaughter quipped, under-13
Instagram is Facebook’s ‘gateway drug’ to Instagram and Facebook’s other
applications. As a grandparent, I am glad to see groups like NAAG, ccfc, and the
BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association (FIPA) raising privacy
issues.