LOOK, MA! NOW KIDS CAN TEXT
Facebook’s chat app for children
It’s “The Social Network” meets “Sesame Street.”
Facebook is targeting kids as young as 6 with a messaging app introduced Monday — but some family-safety advocates fear it will be a slippery slope for Mark Zuckerberg’s 2 billion-user network.
Messenger Kids is a training-wheels version of the company’s full-fledged Messenger app. The kids’ version will allow children to exchange messages and photos with friends and family, as well as engage in video chats.
Facebook said there will be plenty of safeguards built into Messenger Kids. Parents will have to sign their children up for the service and must approve any person with whom each youngster will communicate.
At the same time, Facebook is promising not to sell ads into the Messenger Kids stream or automatically move the kids onto Facebook when they turn 13, the earliest age a user can open an account on the network.
Messenger Kids can be downloaded onto a child’s device but will be con- trolled by a parent. The child will not have his or her own Facebook account.
Still, some family-safety organizations are wary.
“[Messenger Kids] doesn’t overcome the issues of screen time and screen use and all the other issues that go with technology and kids,” Stephen Balkam, CEO of the Family Online Safety Institute, told The Post.
And James Steyer, CEO of the kids-focused nonprofit Common Sense Media, said, “Why should parents simply trust that Facebook is acting in the best interest of kids? We encourage Facebook to clarify their policies from the start so that it is perfectly clear what parents are signing up for.”
An October study from Common Sense found that children 8 and under now average nearly 2¹/2 hours a day of screen time, with 48 of those minutes clocked from a mobile device.
Balkam, a member of Facebook’s advisory committee, said the social network has been grappling with its underage users for a long time.
“They’re finally coming to grips with the fact that a service which was cre- ated for college kids is now being used by everyone,” he said.
Balkam said he is happy to see Facebook introducing safeguards to protect its youngest users, but added that the new app does not take away all responsibility from parents.
In a lengthy post, Facebook productmanagement director Loren Cheng wrote that the social network worked with parenting experts to develop a platform that would allow kids to “connect with people they love but also has the level of control parents want.”
Like the regular Messenger app, Messenger Kids will allow users to send GIFs and stickers, but the images available to them will be limited to those deemed age-appropriate.
The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company promises it will not use any child’s information for ads.
Kristelle Lavallee, a children’s psychology expert who advised Facebook on designing the service, called it a “useful tool” but noted, “The risk of exposure to things they were not developmentally prepared for is huge.”