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Trust should not be a sales item

Parents and children should shape a communication platform together

Teckids e.V. invites to a public discussion

History

Nearly no one will have missed the news: <a href="http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Facebook-kauft-WhatsApp-2118920.html"> Facebook made a multi-billion dollar deal with the developers of WhatsApp </a> and bought the company for an enormous price.

After a very short time, the news attracted Facebook critics and privacy advocates, who see the takeover as a significant problem. It is assumed that Facebook, contrary to its assurances, clould exploit the newly acquired <a href="http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/WhatsApp-und-Facebook-Oh-der-Datenschutz-2119431.html"> access to the WhatsApp service's user base </a> in order to continue its data and advertising policy there.

Many WhatsApp users also seem to share this fear, because there are calls for alternatives on Twitter and other channels. WhatsApp had been <a href="http://www.heise.de/security/meldung/WhatsApp-Whistle-unsichere-Instant-Messenger-1938062.html"> noticed several times negatively </a> in the past, however the average user did not have any major suspicions to feel uncomfortable with the operator. However, the open criticism of Facebook's data protection and privacy behavior has repeatedly caused debate, so that trust in all user groups is considerably damaged.

Use by children and young people

As an association in child and youth work, the question arises for us what the takeover of the chat service by Facebook means for minors. The spread of both services among teenagers and - contrary to the terms of use of the social network - increasingly younger children is extreme; Hardly a school day goes by without making WhatsApp chats or recruiting new young users from their friends.

But one thing in particular has been observed over the past few months: While mobile communication via WhatsApp is spreading virally and the developers' cash register is ringing, young users are turning away from Facebook. For some, the "exhibitionism" of the last decade has simply gone out of fashion, others are themselves sensitized to the privacy problems of the network, and parents also sound the alarm with the lively media participation in the criticism.

Much of the online communication among children and adolescents is now taking place via the WhatsApp mobile service. And with the service, Facebook is buying an economically extremely spectacular additional package: Several million young people, their data and their trust.

What happens to media beginners here is the commercialization of trust that they unconsciously place in the services offered and their operators. Once the avalanche has set in and a product has been fundamentally accepted, it spreads virally through the children's and young people's circles of friends.

In principle, this has always been the case, but in the past it was mainly manufacturers of clothes, bags and shoes who fought over the swarming of schoolyard peer groups. Today, the products that fight for reputation are services that, besides personal taste and the desire for trendiness, want to conquer nothing more than the trust of young customers, which they are only too happy to give away in order not to have to lag behind their friends.

"My friend was annoying me with it the whole time. At some point I didn't want my friend to annoy me with it and then I stopped doing it, " says Sascha (12 years old) about his access to WhatsApp. However, Facebook lost to Sascha: "That happened a little with Facebook too. But then I already had WhatsApp and I said: No."

The absurdity of this thoughtless decision can hardly be overlooked: At home, even parents struggle daily for the trust of their pubescent teenagers, but on the Internet the big strangers only need to help themselves. But we can hardly expect our offspring to take this critical point of view, because after all we have created a society that floods its young, manipulable hopefuls with advertising and commerce.

And what do parents do?

With the decision to let their children participate in the online offers of Facebook & Co, the affair is by no means over. On closer inspection, the problems only begin afterwards, because now the question arises of who and what is actually being communicated with.

Due to the structure of the services, parents have little control without interfering with the privacy of their children. In the ring there is the secrecy of letters and telecommunications for children and adolescents on the one hand and the duty of care and the justified care of parents on the other; there is no compromise.

Ultimately, providers such as Facebook or WhatsApp are not at all interested in ensuring that minors can use it properly and safely. Officially, they do not belong to the target group at all - but once you have won them as a customer, you are of course happy, because every host is a good host for a virus. Facebook has recently even completely abolished its previous protection mechanism that prevented minors from posting public messages - it doesn't really solve some problem. The VZ networks, including SchülerVZ, were no exception.

The only way is together