According to Vishal Shah, vice president of Instagram products, the social network is working on a version of its photo-sharing app for children 13 and under.
Recently, we learned that Instagram was adding a host of features to make its platform safer for teenagers 13 and over, the minimum age required to register for the social network.
However, we must not hide our eyes, many young people lie about their age to gain access to the platform before reaching the required age.
As Facebook did with Messenger Kids, the best solution to prevent incidents from happening to children is perhaps to set up an application that is more supervised, but which is exclusively dedicated to them.
Like it or not, children are exposed younger than ever to social media like Instagram.
Give parents more control
The main positive thing about having a kid’s version of a social network like Instagram is without a doubt how much power it gives parents.
Although it is designed for the little ones, it is still controlled by the parents as a whole.
On the other hand, it teaches the child from an early age to take responsibility for the dangers on the web.
Although no detailed plan has been announced yet, we can still imagine that some features will look like Messenger Kids, Facebook’s messaging app for children.
On it, young people can manage their own contact list themselves and report inappropriate content or block contacts, so they are quickly aware.
Unfortunately, since nothing is perfect, making an app like Instagram available to children can be seen as a very early attempt to build loyalty with Facebook and company.
On the other hand, although the motivation behind the project is questionable, it is the safety of the youngest that we must first think about. The parental controls that may end up on the children’s version of Instagram is far from a bad idea!
Facebook Messenger Kids: control in the hands of parents
Instagram is tightening the screw to better protect its teenage users
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