This month, using Facebook’s research, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published a report that claimed Instagram harms teen girls regarding their body image which can further impact mental health. Although Facebook responded, saying the data has been portrayed differently and faced criticism from parents, child specialists, and lawmakers ultimately resulting in pausing the development of the Instagram Kids – a version of the photo-sharing app aimed at children under 13.
In this so-called “Instagram Kids”, kids will be needing parental permission to join, it will only have age-appropriate content and features which will let parents supervise their kid’s activity on the app, plus it wouldn’t be including ads.
In response to the concerns of parents, Instagram’s head Adam Mosseri announced that they have paused (not canceled) the development plan of the Instagram Kids app. Although they believe that children are already on the internet so they should have age-appropriate content only, a thing that would be better for parents too.
Until the development has paused, Mosseri says they have time to work with parents, experts, policymakers, and regulators to listen to their concerns and make them understand the value of the Instagram Kids app.
However, Congress, Democratic lawmakers led by Senator Ed Markey said they are not happy with the Instagram Kids app pause but they want it to drop this idea as the pause is insufficient. They also stated that time and again Facebook fails to follow self-regulation so they want social media gaint to cancel this idea to protect young children.
From all this, we can say that there is much work that has to be done if Facebook and Instagram want this project to be in the market.
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