Forget for a moment that they're calling children whales.
They've normalized calling people whales (and dolphins and krakens and...). They've dehumanized their clients; made it easier to not feel concerned that people are dropping hundreds or thousands of dollars on intentionally addictive video games.
Most high-dollar industries have clients that are referred to as whales (gambling, forex, stock exchanges, crypto markets). Facebook didn't normalize it. It's a term that has been use for years.
The fact that the word "children" part of the discussion is a side-note. They're high-dollar spenders (whales).
I don't understand the outrage about the term "whale" here.
I do understand outrage about the targeting of underage gamers though.
> Most high-dollar industries have clients that are referred to as whales (gambling, forex, stock exchanges, crypto markets).
And that makes it OK to refer to people (often those with addiction problems) spending money they don't have on videogames as whales? To target them explicitly with psychological tactics to get them to spend even more money?
I disagree. It's dehumanization. It's morally wrong. Am I in a bubble for thinking such actions are wrong, or are others justifying their own immoral behavior in thinking "well, it's their fault for playing the games and spending the money"?
Facebook, by nature, is a dehumanizing company. They have over 1 billion user accounts...
As someone who works for a software company, I have never considered it my responsibility to check whether a user is "spending money they don't have" on my product. How is that tenable?
I've also never targeted underage users - before you throw me under that bus for no reason, as well..
You are justifying widespread use of a dehumanizing term by its widespread use. I think, you should revisit your line of reasoning, especially from a historical perspective concerning other terms certain groups were called by.
While whale does not carry a very offensive undertone when you're characterizing a group falling victim to some scheme, it is certainly insulting and dehumanizing when they are your targets, especially when calling individuals as such.
I think you should revisit your emotional reasoning. I explained a term. Your vague comment about "certain groups" names, doesn't add anything to the conversation, nor address anything that I said.
My reasoning is fine. I don't like Facebook, and I don't recommend it, because it is dehumanizing, by nature.
They are applying a term that originally describes an adult, and in this context the term "whale" is very clearly connected to several aspects of being an adult, onto a child. Now any descriptive term means the speaker considers there is some sort of equality between all the objects they describe with the term.
Or in other words, calling a child a "whale" implies they think it is perfectly fine that children are high stakes gamblers, because this is the value judgement that comes with the term "whale".
Or maybe they called the user a whale, because as a software engineer, the user is simply a "number on a screen", and that this "number", is spending 100x more $ than all of the other "numbers" (aka, users). So you might refer to that "number" as a whale, by comparison.
If they are knowingly _targeting_ underage users, I do not condone that at all, and it should be addressed. Stop with the "outrage" about the term "whale". It doesn't add to the conversation
Right, the fact that children are affected by all of the mess on the internet is the last line of defense, the last chance to complain, since adults are fair game.
All of us are rational actors who should dicuss EULAs with their lawyers and fully understand and evaluate the consequences of tracking and surveillance.
You live in a weird and not particularly healthy bubble. In every industry I've ever worked in that has lots of clients but derives most revenue from the big fish, "whale" is the common and standard term. It's not demeaning and the whales are generally proud of their status.
If you need some pop culture orientation, watch just about any TV show set in Las Vegas.
They've normalized calling people whales (and dolphins and krakens and...). They've dehumanized their clients; made it easier to not feel concerned that people are dropping hundreds or thousands of dollars on intentionally addictive video games.