What Parents Should Know About Facebook’s Recent Changes

Last week, Facebook announced a number of changes and additions, including an Open Graph protocol and several social plugins that can be used on external websites. For parents, the most important thing to know is that your kids won’t just interact with Facebook through Facebook anymore. Now, you have to worry about what your kid does “on Facebook” whereever your child is on the web. 

Why the Changes in Facebook?

Let’s start with why Facebok is making these changes. Facebook’s goal is to make Facebook the hub for people’s experience of the web, and to thereby gather a rich set of data about people so that Facebook can sell ads and otherwise leverage that data to make money. 

Facebook calls this data set the “social graph.” That social graph includes collecting information about who is related to who else in what way. That’s not all, though. Facebook also wants to know what you and your friends’ interests are, what you like to follow on the web, what you like to talk about, and most of all, what you like to buy. As time goes on, they will become more and more sophisticated in the information they gather. Sentiment measurement is already being done. That’s where brands like Toyota or Proctor & Gamble use algorithms to determine if people’s comments about their brands are positive or negative. Companies also already try to map influence and determine who are “influencers”: those whose comments or posts get shared widely. 

This is just the beginning. Think about the information available to Facebook: your relationship status, where you live, who you associate with, what you like, what your friends like, who your friends are, what you talked about and when on Facebook, and which of your friends then acted after seeing your comments. And on and on.  

Much of this information is already surfaced through Facebook’s advertising network and used to target ads to you. This is called “behavioral targeting” in the online advertising industry. (I worked in that industry for a time.) The systems are constantly being improved to take into account more data and to more accurately target ads to you. Ads are only one way the data could be used, but right now, that’s the primary use of the data. 

So, Facebook’s goal with all its new changes is simply to become more central to you and your child’s use of the web so that it can gather more data about you and make money on it. 

What Has Facebook Changed?

As I showed in my post 5 Graphics that Explain Facebook’s Open Graph, Facebook has released a number of plugins that other websites can us to make their pages more social. For example, any website can now add a little bit of HTML code to display a Recommendations box. That box shows what pages on the website Facebook users liked the most. If you are logged into Facebook, it will order them based on what your own Facebook friends liked the most. 

What that means is that now, you don’t have to be in Facebook to see information from Facebook–or to post to it. Your child is going to be exposed to Facebook all over the web. Websites will be adding the various Facebook plugins like crazy. They will become commonplace very quickly. 

The problem is, it’s going to be easy and tempting for your child to click Like or use one of these social plugins. After all, it’s Facebook! Your child knows, trusts, and is familiar with Facebook. These plugins are going to be so easy to use and so familiar via the Facebook logo that it’s very likely kids will use them. 

 The Facebook tools will make it even easier for your child to comment on videos, photographs, and websites. They’ll make it easier for your child to say that he or she Likes a website. When your child does so, that information will appear on his or her Facebook page for everyone to see. More importantly, these plugins will also make it possible for websites to display your child’s picture (his or her Facebook avatar) right on the website–not just in Facebook. 

Let’s take the new movie Kick A@! as an example.  I don’t know about you, but my kids wanted to see it. After all, it’s about kids that become superheroes. It looked funny. It looked like a kid movie. So, your child goes out to the movie site and watches the trailer. There’s a new Facebook Comment box right on the page next to the video, showing other Facebook users’ comments. After watching the trailer, which has a lot of swearing, your kid’s all pumped up and types what he thinks is a funny comment–full of expletives. 

The comment now appears in the Comment box on the site for anyone to see who comes to watch the trailer. Oh, and guess what else? Your kid’s picture appears right next to the comment. It also goes on his Facebook page and appears on his friends’ walls.

 At this point, Facebook hasn’t published any information indicating that they will be handling the accounts of minors differently than adults, except for their own internal Community Pages.

Oh, and Sites Can Post on Your Kid’s Facbook Page, Too!

The worst part? Websites can add a Like button and put code behind the Like button that makes their website page act like a Facebook page. If you’ve been on Facebook for a while, you’ve probably become a “fan” of  page. The terminology has now changed so that people will “like” a page. When you like a page, the status updates for that page appear in your Facebook stream. For example, if you’ve become a fan of my Parenting and Social Media page on Facebook, when I post an update to the Parenting and Social Media page, it appears on your Wall. 

Now, pages like Kick A@! add a Like button with Facebook code behind it. When you Like the page, that page is added to Facebook’s data set. If you go to the page from within Facebook, you’ll go to the external website instead of a page in Facebook, though. For example, the page on the left below is my Parenting and Social Media Facebook page, created and hosted in Facebook. The page on the left is one that I Liked from a button on the site BigOven. It can now be found by searching within Facebook or through a link on someone’s wall in Facebook, but clicking the link from within Facebook goes outside Facebook to the BigOven site.

Page Created and Hosted In Facebook

Page Created and Hosted Outside of Facebook, but Accessible from It

Fine. So what’s the problem? Now, that website can post to your stream, just like the Parenting and Social Media page you fanned in Facebook could. That means that if your child clicks Like on the Kick A@! trailer page, the Kick A@! people can post to your child’s wall. Any time they choose to, they can send a message to the stream of every person who has Liked their page, directly marketing to your child. 

Oh, and remember that whatever your child Likes shows up on their Profile, too. All the pages, all over the web, that your child has Liked will appear in their public profile. Even if you’ve locked down your child’s account as I’ve covered in my posts, the pages your child Likes outside and inside of Facebook will still appear. 

For example, last week I went to the BigOven.com site and liked the page for the Tika Masala recipe. If someone searches on me in Facebook, even if they’re not my friend, they’ll see it on my profile. Kick A@! could appear there just as easily. The pages your child casually chose to Like will be visible to any teacher, employer, or college recruiter who happens to search and get to his/her Facebook page. 

Remember, too, that all the information about your child’s friends, likes, comments, and activities in Facebook and through the social plugins is available to Facebook and whoever it chooses to share that information with–like advertisers. 

What Should You Look For?

If you want to talk with your child about these plugins or set rules for using them, here’s a summary of the plugins and what kind of access they provide to your child’s information.

	Activity box Displays: Your child’s avatar and any activities around this page/site  When: Your child does any action related to the page, even if it’s only in Facebook. For example, sharing a link to the page with Facebook friends. To:  Anyone who visits the site, though your child’s friends are more likely to see your child’s activities  Description:  Displays actions your child has  taken related to this page or site. That includes sharing the link with friends, commenting on it, and liking it. If your child is logged into Facebook, it will show the activities of his or her friends. Likewise, your child’s activities are more likely to appear when his/her Facebook friends visit the site. In either case, your child’s activities and avatar may appear in the Comment box even if/he simply shared the link on Facebook.
	Recommendations box Displays: A count of recommendations for pages on the site.  When: Your child does actions on or related to the page, such as Liking it or sharing a link. To:  Anyone who visits the site, though pages that friends have recommended will appear higher in the list.  Description: This is probably the safest plugin as it appears to simply display a count of the number of recommendations, and doesn’t show any personal information.
	Comments box Displays: Comments your child makes about the site/page and your child’s avatar. By default these comments also appear on your child’s Facebook page.  When: Your child specifically enters a comment in the comment box. To:  Anyone who visits the site, and to friends in Facebook.  Description:  If your child makes a comment on a site in this box, the comment will appear on the site as well as your child’s picture. By default, the comment will also appear on his/her Facebook page. Note that your child will also see comments that his/her friends make on sites that have a Comment box, as they will appear in your child’s feed.
	Live Stream Displays: Comments your child makes about the site/page and your child’s avatar. They appear on your child’s Facebook page. By default they also appear on the site.  When: Your child specifically enters a comment in the box. To:   Friends in Facebook and anyone who visit the site, by default.  Description: This box is similar to the Comment one. It’s designed to allow people to comment while a live event is being watched on the site. If your child makes a comment on a site in this box, the comment will appear on Facebook.  By default, it will also appear on the site, along with your child’s picture.
	Like Box Displays: The messages that the Facebook page has published. They appear on your child’s Facebook page. When: Someone, such as the Facebook page owner, posts something on the page. To:   Your child’s Facebook page. Description: This box lets people Like a page that is created and maintainedin Facebook and view the posts from that page.  This isn’t a change from the way Facebook operates now. The only difference is that you will see more Like boxes appearing on sites, encouraging people to become a “fan” of a Facebook page.
	Like Button Displays: The messages that the website owner publishes via this page. They appear on your child’s Facebook page. When: The site owner decides to send a message to everyone who has Liked the page. To:   Your child’s Facebook page. Description: In my opinion, this is the most insidious plugin. It looks like a simple Like. But once your child clicks it, the page owner has access to your child.  Depending upon the code the owner implements, the owner can market to your child by posting right on his or her Facebook page. Also, a variation of this button will show the avatars and names of your child’s friends who have Liked the page, which only entices your child more to click the Like button.