Facebook app stirs debate over kids, social media

Facebook now has a messaging app for kids — its first product aimed at young children, putting the social network at the heart of the ongoing debate about how and when children should start their online lives.

The app, called Messenger Kids, allows users under the age of 13 to send texts, videos and photos; they can draw on the pictures they send and add stickers. The app, which launched Monday in the U.S., gives the company access to a new market whose age prohibits them from using the firm’s main social network. Unlike with its full social network, the data collection will be limited, Facebook said, and the children will need their parents’ permission to use it.

Messenger Kids was designed after consultation with hundreds of parents and several children’s advocates, such as the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the social network said. The company took many cues from these conversations, said Antigone Davis, Facebook’s head of global safety. Parental permission is required to sign up for the app, she said. If two children want to be friends with each other, each will have to get parental approval for contact.

“It’s just like setting up a play date,” Davis said.

Facebook’s move is the latest from a tech behemoth that show how companies are grappling with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. The law requires companies targeting children under 13 to take extra steps to safeguard privacy and security — particularly around advertising, as children may not understand what is and is not an ad. For years, major tech firms such as Facebook complied with COPPA by not allowing those under 13 to have accounts. But with technology moving deeper into the home and many companies looking for more growth, children have become a more attractive market.

“It’s a very lucrative market; companies want to capture these people, these children, so they can keep them throughout their lives,” said Kathryn Montgomery, a communications professor at American University and one of the main advocates who helped get COPPA passed.

Several tech giants have recently released products that allow younger children to use their services within the limits of the kids’ privacy law — and reach more of the country’s 48.8 million children under the age of 13 in the process. Google in March introduced “Family Link,” which allowed parents to set up kid-friendly Google Accounts. Amazon has also added kid-focused “skills” to its Echo smart speakers, which require a parent’s permission to activate.