Facebook Is Developing a Version of Instagram for Children Under 13

[MacRumors]

Facebook is developing a version of Instagram that's specifically aimed at children under 13, according to an internal company post (via BuzzFeed News).

"I'm excited to announce that going forward, we have identified youth work as a priority for Instagram and have added it to our H1 priority list," Vishal Shah, Instagram's vice president of product, wrote on an employee message board on Thursday. "We will be building a new youth pillar within the Community Product Group to focus on two things: (a) accelerating our integrity and privacy work to ensure the safest possible experience for teens and (b) building a version of Instagram that allows people under the age of 13 to safely use Instagram for the first time."

Instagram's policy prohibits kids under 13 from using the platform. Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri later confirmed in a tweet that a version of the popular photo sharing app is "something we're exploring."

"Kids are increasingly asking their parents if they can join apps that help them keep up with their friends," wrote Mosseri. "A version of Instagram where parents have control, like we did [with] Messenger Kids, is something we're exploring. We'll share more down the road."

The news follows a blog post from Instagram earlier this week in which the Facebook-owned company described changes coming to the platform with the aim of "protecting young people."

In the post, Instagram admitted that some young users "can lie about their date of birth," when signing up to the platform, and said it now asks some new users for a form of age verification, but the post didn't mention its work on a distinct platform specifically for children.

In 2017, Facebook launched Messenger Kids, which is aimed at children between the ages of 6 and 12. Following the launch, several children's health advocates called on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to discontinue the product, citing research that "excessive use of digital devices and social media is harmful to children and teens, making it very likely this new app will undermine children's healthy development."

Facebook said it had consulted multiple experts during the app's development, although a Wired report later revealed that the company had financial relationships with many of the people and organizations that advised on the product.

In 2019, The Verge reported on a bug in Messenger Kids that allowed children to join groups with strangers. Facebook soon acted to resolve the issue, claiming it had only affected a "small number of group chats."

Article Link: Facebook Is Developing a Version of Instagram for Children Under 13

 

[djcerla]

In 2017, following the launch (of YouTube Kids), several children's health advocates called on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to discontinue the product citing "excessive use of digital devices and social media is harmful to children and teens, making it very likely this new app will undermine children's healthy development."

Aaah... the good ol' Pre-Covid world.

 

[Bug-Creator]

/me is glad to have grown up in the 70/80s long before all that c### started

/me is glad to not have any kids that could get poisoned by something like that

/me fears to live as an old man in a world controlled by kids grown up on this

 

[laudern]

Parents need to learn how to say 'no'.

 

[vicviper789]

/me is glad to have grown up in the 70/80s long before all that c### started

/me is glad to not have any kids that could get poisoned by something like that

/me fears to live as an old man in a world controlled by kids grown up on this

I never was a fan of C#, I prefer Python instead

 

[Captain Trips]

Oh, this will end well. Really.

Why is everyone laughing so hard?

 

[svanstrom]

I never was a fan of C#, I prefer Python instead

That's just because you youngsters never had the stamina to learn perl.

 

[Captain Trips]

That's just because you youngsters never had the stamina to learn perl.

Stamina - learn machine language.

Disclaimer - I have coded for a living, but not in machine language / machine code. That did not look like fun.

 

[darkcompass]

Stamina - learn machine language.

Disclaimer - I have coded for a living, but not in machine language / machine code. That did not look like fun.

I need to brush up on my Pascal, with a side code of Cobol.

 

[PBG4 Dude]

Stamina - learn machine language.

Disclaimer - I have coded for a living, but not in machine language / machine code. That did not look like fun.

I like ASM because it teaches you about the processor you’re using. You need to know the number of available registers, math units; how long read/writes to RAM take, etc. It’s pretty neat, IMO.

Though I figured growing up in the 70s/80s maybe Pascal or Logo would’ve received a mention.

Edit: ninja’d on the Pascal notion

 

[Captain Trips]

I like ASM because it teaches you about the processor you’re using. You need to know the number of available registers, math units; how long read/writes to RAM take, etc. It’s pretty neat, IMO.

Though I figured growing up in the 70s/80s maybe Pascal or Logo would’ve received a mention.

Oh, absolutely - Assembly (thank you, that was the name I was forgetting) seemed like a vey low level language that would force you to learn a lot about the underlying hardware.

I did learn Pascal in college but never had a chance to use it.

 

[StevieD100]

This is clearly from the 'get them young and you have them for life' part of MBA Education.

This must come with a warning
"Danger - This App is designed to be highly addictive. It may destroy your mental and physical health"

As has been said, this won't end well and it won't be bad on the side of Instagram/Facebook.

 

[tranceking26]

This won't end well. Plus, quite a few of these kids will be on the original version already.

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

I... don’t even know where to start with this.

 

[Kid Red]

I thought you couldn't have accounts for kids 13 and under? Zuck just trying his hardest to get data on every human.

 

[Mrjetsondc]

Instagram is a pox on society. I’m keeping an eye on you, Zucky. You better clean up FB and Insta.

 

[PBG4 Dude]

I... don’t even know where to start with this.

Facebook is taking a page out of tobacco’s marketing. When I was a kid, candy cigarettes were everywhere, for example.

Might as well call the new service “WeHookEmYoung”.

 

[Kabeyun]

Well, that isn’t creepy at all.

 

[dvanwinkle]

I need to brush up on my Pascal, with a side code of Cobol.

You could literally write whatever number you want on your paycheck at some companies if you did. No one wants to learn those languages and all the people who know it now are leaving the workforce. There is a LOT of software that runs on those languages.

 

[Captain Trips]

I thought you couldn't have accounts for kids 13 and under? Zuck just trying his hardest to get data on every human.

Well, in some areas of the world people under the age of 18 can get married and serve in the military / militia.

"Some where in the world there are 'adults' under the age of 18 - gotta get them all as users of our apps!"

 

[PlainviewX]

What could go wrong?

 

[MacOH21]

I have a bad feeling about this...

 

[and 1989 others]

They would start profiling your children as foetuses if they could. A truly disgusting company.

 

[svanstrom]

Lol very true.,,and young people today will be doing the same exact thing in the not so distant future....and the beat goes on

Actually, I feel that online communications have increased the intra-generational communications in a new way; there's definitely a lot more of introspective joking going on between the zoomers and millennials than between earlier generations.

Personally I think/hope that will result in a less adversarial rivalry between them (and gen alpha etc, ofc) than what we've seen before.

 

[svanstrom]

They would start profiling your children as foetuses if they could. A truly disgusting company.

Hah, just look at all the data that (future) parents are already sharing from things like 23andme profiling etc; not to mention all the updates during the pregnancies.

They might not yet have individual profiles for foetuses; but they do have the data.

Fetal genome profiling at 5 weeks of gestation after noninvasive isolation of trophoblast cells from the endocervical canal - PubMed

Single-gene mutations account for more than 6000 diseases, 10% of all pediatric hospital admissions, and 20% of infant deaths. Down syndrome and other aneuploidies occur in more than 0.2% of births worldwide and are on the rise because of advanced reproductive age. Birth defects of genetic...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov