By James Simons-
Facebook is reportedly building a version of Instagram for children aged 13 and under, who are currently forbidden from joining its main app.
The app has recently been implementing new features to ‘make Instagram safer for the youngest members of our community’, with Vice President of Product Vishal Shah reportedly telling employees the company is making ‘youth work’ a priority.
The new app would be overseen by Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, and Pavni Diwanji, who was previously the head of Google’s child-friendly version of YouTube, called YouTube Kid
“I’m excited to announce that going forward, we have identified youth work as a priority for Instagram and have added it to our H1 priority list,” Vishal Shah, Instagram’s vice president of product, wrote on an internal employee message board, according to BuzzFeed News.
“We will be building a new youth pillar within the Community Product Group to focus on two things: (a) accelerating our integrity and privacy work to ensure the safest possible experience for teens and (b) building a version of Instagram that allows people under the age of 13 to safely use Instagram for the first time.”
As it stands, the current app only allows people above the age of 13 to create an account, however it is well known that many users lie about their date of birth when signing up.
The app has recently been implementing new features to ‘make Instagram safer for the youngest members of our community’, with Vice President of Product Vishal Shah reportedly telling employees the company is making ‘youth work’ a priority.
The news comes just days after it was announced adults would no longer be able to DM under 18s who were not following them back. If they attempt to do so, they’ll receive a message telling them they cannot message that particular person.
Technology
During the announcement, Instagram bosses acknowledged the issue around underage teens and kids signing up to the app by lying about their age, explaining that it is developing technology that will be capable of predicting the age of users from their images.
The blog post explained, ‘To address this challenge, we’re developing new artificial intelligence and machine learning technology to help us keep teens safer and apply new age-appropriate features.’
Moves to protect younger users come after reports the app has played a big part in bullying and abuse suffered by children and teens.