Facebook Launching Parent-Controlled Messenger App For Kids
PHILADELPHIA (CBS/AP) -- With over 2 billion users, Facebook is already the world's largest social network, but now the company is rolling out a new app to get users into its ecosystem at an earlier age.
Messenger Kids is a new version of Facebook's popular chat app Messenger for children under the age of 13.
Once downloaded, Messenger Kids lets parents sign up their children using just the child's first and last names. If they want to add a contact, a parent needs to approve it.
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Designed mostly for non-phone devices, like a tablet or iPod Touch, the app lets children text and video chat with their family and friends. Like Snapchat, it includes filters and lenses so children can add digital graphics to picture or video, like sunglasses or dog ears.
Facebook says the app was developed in compliance with COPPA, the law that protects children's privacy online. The app will also not have any advertisements or in-app purchases.
For now, Messenger Kids is only available for iOS but coming soon to Android and Amazon Kindle devices.
Messenger Kids comes with a slew of controls for parents. The service won't let children add their own friends or delete messages — only parents can do that. Kids don't get a separate Facebook or Messenger account; rather, it's an extension of a parent's account.
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While children do use messaging and social media apps designed for teenagers and adults, those services aren't built for them, said Kristelle Lavallee, a children's psychology expert who advised Facebook on designing the service.
"The risk of exposure to things they were not developmentally prepared for is huge," she said.
Messenger Kids, meanwhile, "is a result of seeing what kids like," which is images, emoji and the like. Face filters and playful masks can be distracting for adults, Lavallee said, but for kids who are just learning how to form relationships and stay in touch with parents digitally, they are ways to express themselves.
Lavallee, who is content strategist at the Center on Media and Child Health at Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard University, called Messenger Kids a "useful tool" that "makes parents the gatekeepers." But she said that while Facebook made the app "with the best of intentions," it's not yet known how people will actually use it.
As with other tools Facebook has released in the past, intentions and real-world use do not always match up. Facebook's live video streaming feature, for example, has been used for plenty of innocuous and useful things, but also to stream crimes and suicides.
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Is Messenger Kids simply a way for Facebook to rope in the young ones?
Stephen Balkam, CEO of the nonprofit Family Online Safety Institute, said "that train has left the station."
Federal law prohibits internet companies from collecting personal information on kids under 13 without their parents' permission and imposes restrictions on advertising to them. This is why Facebook and many other social media companies prohibit younger kids from joining. Even so, Balkam said millions of kids under 13 are already on Facebook, with or without their parents' approval.
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He said Facebook is trying to deal with the situation pragmatically by steering young Facebook users to a service designed for them.
Facebook said Messenger Kids won't show ads or collect data for marketing. Facebook also said it won't automatically move users to the regular Messenger or Facebook when they get old enough, though the company might give them the option to move contacts to Messenger down the line.
Messenger Kids is launching Monday in the U.S. on Apple devices — the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Versions for Android and Amazon's tablets are coming later.
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