Used gaming to rip-off kids & Parents

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Internal documentation shows Facebook encouraged game developers to let children spend money without their parents’ permission, then refused to give the money back, and called this practice, "friendly fraud". Then ignored warnings from its own employees that it was bamboozling children. All according to unsealed court documents that are part of a class action lawsuit focused on how Facebook conducts business. Ouch!

The more than 135 pages of unsealed documents, which include internal Facebook memos, secret strategies and employee emails, paint a troubling picture of how the social media giant treats customers.

  • For years, it allowed for what it called “friendly fraud” because it feared implementing protections would harm revenue:
  • One employee asks if they should process the ($6545) refund but are advised not to do so. “Agreed. Just double checking,” the first employee replies.
  • (a FB risk analyst) said it would “make sense to start refunding for blatant Family Fraud-minor.” … Facebook decided that it would harm revenue and elected to continue fighting refund requests for the foreseeable future.
  • … around 93 percent “of the refunds are being made due to friendly fraud refund requests.”

What’s telling is the FB response to the press about these released records. They decline to claim they did anything wrong, have no plans to change policies, and point out that they’re not doing anything illegal.

Facebook
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Facebook is 3 things: bad interface, bad management, and biased policies. I want a social network that gives me control of what I see and share -- both to my friends and to advertisers. I realize they need to make a buck, and my information is their product, but the point is you can still give users the illusions of control. But Zuckerberg seems to have falling into the egocentric pit that many young billionaires do, they think because they timed things well, and worked hard, and got lucky that they're smarter than everyone else. This makes them arrogant, less mature, and slower to grow than the average human: Dunning-Kruger, inflated by being surrounded by yes-men.

more...

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📚 References