Facebook encourages anorexia

Has anyone else noticed the ads that are served up on facebook to young teen girls? My daughter's facebook profiles always have really horrible dieting ads depicting anorexic women. I just saw one that said "I had let myself go" with a photo of a woman who was clearly anorexic. Every time you hit refresh, it's another similar ad.... my own profile on facebook does not have these ads. They are targeting teens only.

I think this is completely irresponsible and we should send a petition to facebook.

This is the profile of the CEO of facebook - if you agree with me, send him a message:

http://www.facebook.com/s.php?k=100000080& ;id=4

and here is the facebook blog, where you can submit comments:

http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=208777 67130

Please join me!! Let's protect our teens!

good luck, unfortunately the internet is full of disgusting things, and protecting kids from them is probably not going to happen.

yeah, good luck. Facebook isn't promoting anything, people buy advertising space and can do with it what they want. I'm 21 and get the same ads, I seriously don't think they're just targeting young teens.

Have you ever clicked on the ads on CC?

"Lose 9 pounds in 11 days"

Now we all know THAT is not healthy.

CC promotes healthy weight loss....right?

Its the advertisers paying their healthy butts, whether its good advertising or not

 

EDIT

I didn't mean to sound like I was discouraging your feelings, I was just sayin'

exactly.

I understand you're upset, jen. But making inflammatory remarks about an online community that was originally intended college students, isn't the way to go. Perhaps your daughter's just too young to have one.

The same ads aren't showing up on my facebook, or my DH's facebook. Only my DD's. They are 14 and 16.

I think the facebook ads are WAAAAY worse than anything I've ever seen on c-c ... true I have been away for a few months... but I have never seen anything this bad anywhere on the internet (and I travel far and wide).

Just to be clear, we're not talking about airbrushed skinny women; we're talking about *skeletal* women.

Are you sure you have seen the same ads I'm talking about?

I know the ads you're talking about but there is still nothing you can do about it.

It's not facebook, it's the advertisers. Facebook is a business, first and foremost, so as long as they pay and it's not obscene the advertisers will continue to do what they want.

That's why I use Firefox with the Ad Blocker Plus plug-in so I never ever have to see banner ads on any sites. :)

Original Post by amg76:

I know the ads you're talking about but there is still nothing you can do about it.

It's not facebook, it's the advertisers. Facebook is a business, first and foremost, so as long as they pay and it's not obscene the advertisers will continue to do what they want.

Business or not, there's an ethical obligation to keep **** like that away from kids.  I'd love to get my hands on the pigs who are creating these ads - it makes me sick!  However, I don't think a petition is going to make a change.  But hey, you never know.  You can call/write the news about it... like the 'give me a break' segment.  Maybe they'll do a story on it.

i think facebook and myspace ads cater to your interests, or things you might say in your profile. i've noticed in the past few months (i have accounts with both sites) that there are more and more ads for knitting and baby products. i enjoy knitting, and i'm starting to plan for a family. it's directed advertising.

i get ads like that, but they are promoted to "Skinny brides"...and "fitting into the perfect dress" I added facebook's stupid "wedding planner" application and ever since, my ads are all about losing weight for a wedding dress...I think kist6084 is right, myspace and facebook do cater to your interests. I always get ads on myspace about cheap tickets to peru, or fire fighter tshirts, etc...things that are listed on my profile or in my interests.

Oh yeah, it definitly depends on what your interests are and your demographic, so I never get the adds that you're refering too.

But honestly, I don't think it's that big of a deal. I mean there's crap adds everywhere, I think the girls that are going to be anorexic are going to do it, and those that are smart enough and know better aren't. I dunno, I guess I just put a lot more emphasis on personal responsibilty than most people it seems, even for teenagers, and their parents.

I get the diet ads there too, and they are easy enough to ignore. Its the singles ads ever since my status changed from 'in a relationship' to 'single' that bother me.

'Meet 5 men in 5 minutes' and 'Hot young men are waiting for you' and the like are almost always popping up for me. I don't care much now, but right after a break-up being reminded of being single every time I logged on was horrible!

I understand how you feel jen, being a parent of teens myself. We want to shield them and try to protect them from the garbage out in the world...unfortunately, the internet gives us the best of both worlds. Information, and too much information...and then the just plain crap. At your daughters ages, while you are still in command of the technology...you could control what you have the power to control. My sons only get a limited amount of supervised internet time. I believe that anything...overdone, can be a bad thing. I would talk to your girls about the ads and let them know your veiws about the subject. They will listen to mom first.

I want my teens to be able to use facebook, and have no problem with the site in general. They have a lot of fun with it.

I just objected to these ads - they were truly awful, picturing "before" shots of women who needed to lose no weight at all, and "after" shots showing skin and bones. And seemed to be the only ads in rotation for days on end.

Anyway, I sent in a complaint and now the ads have seemed to disappeared.  There is only one weight loss ad in rotation but it's not objectionable: it shows a "before" with someone who is overweight, and an "after" with someone of normal, reasonable size.

Now it is serving up casino ads instead... LOL... but that doesn't bug me so much! It was just these other ads - they were bad, bad, bad.

I'm pretty sure that ads are generated based on things one searches for through the internet or facebook. If your teens are searching "diet tips" the ads on the side of the page try to correlate with your teens interest. Ads are everywhere, get an ad blocker or choose not to allow your teen on fb, if you are worried about their health. Free sites need to make money somehow. I think it's great that you want to protect your child but there's much worse out there then ads that ususally get ignored on facebook!

Have you tried clicking on the little thumbs down underneath the ad? You can report them as offensive or misleading or whatever you feel they are.

Original Post by amnlcrckr:

i get ads like that, but they are promoted to "Skinny brides"...and "fitting into the perfect dress" I added facebook's stupid "wedding planner" application and ever since, my ads are all about losing weight for a wedding dress....

Just wait until you're married... as soon as I changed my relationship status I started getting ads for "Trying to Get Pregnant?"

I found that if you keep reporting ads as offensive they will stop showing up in your profile.  Still, the anorexic teen ads sound really sickening.

Original Post by schnooder:

Have you ever clicked on the ads on CC?

"Lose 9 pounds in 11 days"

Now we all know THAT is not healthy.

 I agree, we should not be promoting amputation.

"skeletal" does not = anorexic.

!!!

And I am willing to bet your girls have so many other sources of people looking like that...magazines, TV, google, people at school, out of school activities...

If you're honestly worried about them developing a food problem like some type of an ED then take into consideration that just because they see a picture of a skeletal woman it won't make them want to look like that and get there in an unhealthy way.

But, I see where you're coming from. Maybe you could build them a bubble?

Sounds like the perfect opportunity to talk to your children (if you haven't already) about advertising in general.  A lot of kids are much more media-savvy than we give them credit for and aren't that easily swayed.  Talk to your daughters about your concerns, find out what they think & what their opinions of these kinds of ads are. 

The internet can't be censored effectively.  So sometimes it's better to use exposure to these things to spark a healthy discussion than try to shield them from reality and hope it all goes away.