Innocent BenjaminMark Zuckerberg and Facebook-owned media-sharing platform, Instagram, is said to be developing a special version of the social network reserved for children under the age of 13.
The software will be an independent application, developed to offer a social experience adapted to young users. With such a version of Instagram, Facebook could access a new audience who, once older, can join the traditional version of the application.
Currently, most social networks require you to be at least 13 years old to create an account, a rule that is unfortunately not respected by all. Many young users thus find themselves exposed to content that is not necessarily adapted to their age. Social networks are also regularly criticized for this.
One of the solutions considered by Facebook is to offer a version of Instagram suitable for children, as reported by BuzzFeed on the basis of an exclusive report.
“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.”
The project is still at an embryonic stage, so the application should not arrive for a little while. But the concept should still appeal to parents, as well as the youngest.
Children could indeed act “like the grown-ups” and share their pictures on the social network in an appropriate and secure environment. One can easily imagine that the new application will grant parents access and some level of have control over the account of their offspring, see what they share, what they like, etc., in the same way as on Messenger Kids.
It remains to be seen what concrete measures Facebook will put in place to ensure the safety of children from various forms of predation lurking around. Either way, parents should logically have a role to play in the app so that their children’s experience is ideal.
Facebook seems in any case to be more interested in young users and the possible abuse to which they could be subjected to. The American company has recently implemented a new system on Instagram that prevents adults from contacting underage users with whom they are not friends, as well as ways to avoid requests and inappropriate messages, even if abuses remain possible.
OFONIMEH JOHNSON
James steller
Mitrobe Staff