TRAINING WHEELS
Facebook’s newest messaging app is aimed at kids too young to use the real site,
Facebook has a messaging app for kids — its first product aimed at young children. The move gives Facebook a way to court younger users, with their parents’ permission. It also puts the social network at the heart of the ongoing debate about how and when children should start using digital products.
The app, called Messenger Kids, allows kids 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 launches 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. The narrowed app was designed after consultation with hundreds of parents and several children’s advocates, such as the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Facebook 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, both of their parents will have to approve the contact. “It’s just like setting up a play date,” Davis said.
Parents have to use their Facebook email address and password to activate their child’s account, but that does not log a parent into their child’s device. Facebook said it has also created privacy and security measures to give parents transparency and control over their kids’ online activities.
Facebook’s move is the latest from a tech behemoth that shows how technology companies are confronting the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). This law requires companies targeting children under 13 to take extra steps to safeguard privacy and security. For years, major tech firms such as Facebook have complied with COPPA by not allowing those under 13 to have accounts. But with technology moving deeper into the home and many firms looking for more growth, children have become a more attractive market.
Major tech firms have recently released more products that allow children to use their products within the limits of the 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 for children under 13. Amazon has also added kid-focused “skills” to its Echo smart speakers, which require a parent’s permission to activate.
(Amazon chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos is the owner of the Washington Post.)
Facebook said it will collect some data, including a child’s name, the content of their messages and data about how the app is being used — even if it is not as extensive as the information it asks from adults.
No data from Messenger Kids will be fed to the main social network, nor will their information automatically port to other Facebook products when they turn13, the company said. But, per the app’s privacy policy, Facebook reserves the right to share information with third parties, which must in turn prove to Facebook that they have strong privacy policies to protect children. Davis said that Facebook spoke with the Federal Trade Commission to ensure that the app is compliant with COPPA.
When it comes to ads, Facebook said it will also not use data from Messenger Kids for Facebook ads. Parents shouldn’t, for example, see an ad for a toy on Facebook because their child talked about it on Messenger Kids. Davis said that if a parent decides to delete their child’s account, Facebook will also delete any data from its own servers.
Safety also remains a major question for any online kids’ product. Facebook’s safeguards have made it more difficult for strangers to contact a child, they said. But that safety depends on the fact that kids won’t know their parents’ Facebook passwords.
The app launches on Apple’s App Store first. Facebook plans to release Android and Amazon versions next year. The company has no plans to release a similar kids-only platform for its other main social network, Instagram.
Parents may worry about exposing their young children to digital services, but Facebook has taken steps to make sure they can maintain control, said Larry Magid, chief executive of the non-profit ConnectSafely.org, one of many organizations Facebook briefed on the product ahead of its launch. A recent study from Common Sense Media found that parents are more skeptical of the benefits of social media for their children then they are of smartphones or even wearable devices. Magid said that it may be more realistic to encourage companies to create safer, more limited and legally compliant services as a sort of “training wheels” version of more mainstream social media.
“The reality is that kids are going to go use apps if they’re under13,” he said. “The question becomes do we simply ban them and fight a losing fight?”