Official pressure may prevent Facebook from launching Instagram for Kids
Official pressure may prevent Facebook from launching Instagram for Kids
Facebook has come under fire for attempting to develop a product that would allow it to reach minors. By converting them to users, the social media giant creates an opportunity to target them with advertisements.
The product is a children's Instagram application. In a letter to the company, attorney generals from 44 states in the United States pleaded with it to shut down the app.
The letter states in part, "As recently articulated by dozens of organizations and experts, 'Instagram...leverages young people's fear of missing out and desire for peer approval to encourage children and teens to constantly check their devices and share photos with their followers,' and 'the platform's relentless focus on appearance, self-presentation, and branding poses challenges for adolescents.'
The primary obstacle that Facebook faces is a track record of not prioritizing its users' privacy and safety.
The Cambridge Analytica Scandal
The company came under fire in March 2018 as a result of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Cambridge Analytica is a political consulting firm that has been charged with analyzing the private data of 50 million Facebook users in advance of the 2016 US presidential elections. Later, the figure was revised to 87 million profiles.
Following that, Business Insider reported on a data breach that exposed the data of 533 million Facebook users. It contained information about users from 106 countries, including phone numbers, Facebook IDs, full names, locations, birthdates, and email addresses.
Because the data captured is static for the user, it remains valuable to hackers or predators who come across it.
Apart from the data breaches, Facebook's targeted advertising business and its practice of exploiting user data have tarnished the company's image in the public eye.
The company faced criticism in 2020 for allowing hateful and misleading content on its Facebook platform. Coca Cola, Unilever, and Microsoft are among the companies that temporarily suspended advertising on Facebook in response to the allegation.
This is not the first time the social media behemoth has attempted to entice underage users into its nest. It launched Messenger for Kids in 2017 and since then, some parents have complained. In 2018, more than 100 child experts urged Facebook to discontinue Messenger's children's version.
According to the experts, children are simply "not ready" to have social media accounts. They are not mature enough to navigate the complexities of online relationships, which frequently result in miscommunication and conflict even among more mature users.”
The attorneys general expressed a similar sentiment in their letter to Mark Zuckerberg expressing their opposition to Instagram for Kids. According to the letter, young children are unprepared to deal with the variety of challenges associated with having an Instagram account. “Children lack a mature understanding of privacy,” it reads in part.
In Conclusion
The letter discusses the detrimental effects of social media on young children's self-esteem, mental health, depression, and weight dissatisfaction. Exposure to social media is associated with harmful behaviors in young underage users, according to research.
Although Messenger Kids was launched in 2017 and the app is still available, Instagram for Kids may face stiffer opposition this time around. This is because Facebook has only recently been subjected to a barrage of negative publicity regarding data privacy and harmful content online.
The opposition from various levels of government, as well as the numerous antitrust battles in which it is embroiled, may be enough to deter the large tech company from launching Instagram Kids.
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