Nude Webcams and Diet Drugs: the Facebook Ads Teens Aren't Supposed to See
Excerpted from http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/..._MIDDLETopNews
By JEFF ELDER CONNECT
Feb. 27, 2014 5:51 p.m. ET
"Who do you like?" asked recent ads on Facebook, FB -0.46% featuring young women in alluring poses.
Some of the ads were configured to reach young teens, who were invited to join an app called Ilikeq that let others rate their attractiveness, comment on their photos and say if they would like to date them.
That's how 14-year-old Erica Lowder's picture ended up on display to adult men online. Users of Ilikeq, one of Facebook's fastest-growing "lifestyle" apps, were able to click through to the Indianapolis girl's Facebook page.
"How can Facebook say here's how we're going to protect your kids, then sell all these ads to weird apps and sites that open kids up to terrible things?" asked Erica's mother, Dawn Lowder.
The case offers a glimpse into how young Facebook users are sometimes exposed to ads inappropriate for them. A 14-year-old girl in Washington state said she "liked" an ad that led to the Facebook page of a nude webcam-modeling site. A 17-year-old boy in an Oakland, Calif., neighborhood beset by gun violence repeatedly saw an ad for a concealed-carry handgun holster.
The ads highlight Facebook Inc.'s challenge in policing a social network that has more than a billion users and a million advertisers, by its count. Facebook generated roughly $7 billion in Internet advertising last year, more than any other company except Google Inc. GOOG -0.08% Facebook posted net income of $1.5 billion for 2013, and its shares are near an all-time high.
"We take the quality of ads on Facebook very seriously," Facebook said in a statement. "Because of the enormous volume of ads under review on a daily basis, we invest significant resources in both automated and manual tools to enforce our policies, along with tools to educate advertisers."
Facebook said that while its methods were effective at identifying and removing "the vast majority" of prohibited ads before they run, "no system is perfect. When we find or are made aware of prohibited ads, we remove them immediately, as we did for the prohibited ads [cited by The Wall Street Journal]."
In many cases, Facebook said, it will disable an advertiser's account entirely if it violates the company's policies.
Once posted, ads can be flagged as inappropriate by users and reviewed again. The system then gets smarter, taking into account past flagged ads, Facebook said. The company said it cracks down on problem areas, such as dating ads using racy photos and headlines. It declined to say how many ads it rejects.
Ads on Facebook for concealed-carry handgun holsters can be seen by teens at the Youth UpRising center in gun-ridden East Oakland in California.
Other online platforms also face challenges policing what are largely self-serve systems for advertisers to build their own ads. Google in 2011 acknowledged it had helped Canadian pharmacies run ads that targeted the U.S., which the Justice Department said led to unlawful importation of prescription drugs into the U.S. Google agreed to forfeit $500 million, a sum representing its revenue from the ads plus revenue received by the Canadian pharmacies from their sales to U.S. consumers. "It's obvious with hindsight that we shouldn't have allowed these ads on Google in the first place," Google said at the time.
Google and Twitter Inc., like Facebook, use a mix of computers and humans to review ads. Google said it doesn't allow ads for counterfeit goods or handguns. It does display ads for adult webcam sites and concealed-weapon holsters. Google said it removed more than 350 million improper ads in 2013, up 59% from 2012. Twitter said it doesn't allow ads related to sex, drugs and weapons, among other topics.
Sophie Bean, 14, of Sequim, Wash., said she was thought she was "liking" a Facebook ad related to fashion modeling. Instead, it promoted a Facebook page that recruited adult webcam models.
"I just thought it was for modeling, and I'm interested in that, and I thought it would help me out," Sophie said.
Clicking "like" on the ad meant she also had "liked" a Facebook page that contains links to the website of a firm called Internet Modeling. The website says that "generally webcam models are asked to pose nude."
Sophie wasn't the only teen connecting with the page, which Facebook statistics show is most popular with users 13 to 17. Clicking on it didn't pull the teens into nude webcam modeling, but did mean they would receive the page's updates and could be mentioned in future versions of the ad.
Sophie's father, Robert Bean, said he found the matter "pretty disgusting." He said that if Facebook is aware of such ads, "they need to be exposed for dealing with companies like this."
Internet Modeling, of Tampa, Fla., said the ad was placed by an affiliate marketer—an agent that buys ads for others on Facebook and other sites—in violation of Internet Modeling's terms of service.
"This seems to be an issue with Facebook accepting and showing such ads to 14 year olds," the company said in an email. Internet Modeling, which describes itself as an adult talent agency, said it doesn't intend to advertise to minors and requires that all models be at least 18.
The ad no longer appears on Facebook. The social network said it deleted all ads related to adult services brought to its attention by the Journal.
Facebook is also a hub for diet ads, some of which have reached teens younger than its minimum age for seeing these, which is 18.
Ads for diet products containing a substance called HCG have run on Facebook. HCG, a hormone produced during pregnancy, is approved by the Food and Drug Administration as a prescription drug for infertility. But the agency, in a 2011 news release headed "HCG Diet Products Are Illegal," said HCG doesn't help with weight loss and isn't approved for over-the-counter sale for any purpose.
A Florida outfit that has run Facebook ads in the past uses an "HCG Diet Kits" Facebook page as an online storefront to sell HCG serum and syringes. The page is most popular with Facebook users aged 13 to 24, according to Facebook's statistics. On Feb. 20, the page posted "Back in stock!" and listed prices for its diet-shots kits to its Facebook following.
Facebook said it doesn't allow ads for HCG products, has disapproved ads from this page recently, and is reviewing the page because of its ongoing HCG sales.
Here's another one from CBS:
http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/facebo...urnal-reports/
Seems like a shitstorm is brewing and FB is going to beef up their ban hammer.