Facebook has paused development of a version of its image-sharing platform Instagram specifically geared towards children, the company announced Monday.
The tech giant decided …
Facebook has paused development of a version of its image-sharing platform Instagram specifically geared towards children, the company announced Monday. The tech giant decided to suspend work on the project in order to “work with parents, experts, policymakers and regulators,” and “demonstrate the value and importance of this project for younger teens online today,” Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, wrote in a statement Monday. Instagram Kids was conceived as a way to “create a version of Instagram for young people or kids where parents have transparency or control,” Mosseri told BuzzFeed News in a March interview when announcing plans for the project. The platform would be tailored towards children under the age of 13, and was envisioned as a way of enabling kids’ access to social media without exposing them to adult or harmful content. “We firmly believe that it’s better for parents to have the option to give their children access to a version of Instagram that is designed for them — where parents can supervise and control their experience — than relying on an app’s ability to verify the age of kids who are too young to have an ID,” Mosseri said.
