Instagram puts children’s app on hold amid safety fears

INSTAGRAM has “paused” its plan to build a “Kids” version of the social network, the app’s boss has said amid a backlash against the proposals from parents and child-safety experts.

Adam Mosseri, the head of Facebook-owned Instagram, said he still believed “strongly” the company’s aim of creating a version for children as young as 10 was the “right thing to do”.

However, Instagram’s Kids project was branded by children’s campaigners as a “cynical” attempt to hook young people on to its app.

The company was heavily criticised when its efforts to build a children’s version of Instagram leaked earlier this year, with the Royal College of Psychiatrists warning it could expose children

to “addictive” algorithms. Announcing the climbdown yesterday, Mr Mosseri defended the project, arguing that underage children were already using Instagram by lying about their age. He said: “It has to be better to give parents the option to give their

‘Socialising children to share, preen, edit and compete for brand building and ad revenue is cynical’

tweens a version of Instagram that was designed with them in mind and that was designed to be safe for those between 10 and 12.”

Mr Mosseri also disclosed that the children’s app the company had been building would have had no adverts and parents would have had to prove their children were old enough to be on it. He said Instagram would not look to build more controls for parents into its main app, which has an age limit of 13.

In recent weeks, Instagram has been hit by leaks about how damaging its app can be for teenagers’ mental health.

Documents obtained by The Wall Street Journal showed that one in seven UK girls with suicidal thoughts interviewed by internal Instagram researchers traced the origin of their damaging thoughts back to the app.

Yesterday, Baroness Kidron, the chairman of the children’s charity 5Rights, said “parents and children cannot trust Facebook” to create a children’s app.

She called for the company instead to put in proper age checks to prevent children younger than 13 from using the app.

The peer told The Daily Telegraph: “Socialising children to share, preen, edit and compete in the name of brand building and ad revenue is cynical.”