The policy of use of Instagram it currently does not allow persons under the age of 13 to create an account or use the service. However, perhaps in the near future yes, at least a special version of Instagram. As he has been able to find out Buzzfeed, Facebook is building a version for children under 13 of its popular social network.
In an internal company statement, Instagram’s vice president of product, Vishal Shah, indicated that it is the priority plan for Instagram. “We have identified youth activity as a priority for Instagram and added it to our H1 priority list,” the statement said. To do this, they seek to focus on two aspects.
The first one is a safer environment for young people that are already in the social network in order to “guarantee the safest possible experience for adolescents.” This in fact we have already seen it come true in a way with the latest measure implemented by Instagram, which does not allow older people to interact with young people unless they follow them.
On the other hand and perhaps even more interesting is the other Instagram plan to prioritize young people: create a version for children under 13 years old. A version that allows these potential users to “use Instagram safely for the first time.” In a sense, similar to what they did with Messenger and its version for minors called ‘Messenger Kids’ (with its more and its minuses).
Why a version for children under 13
According to the internal message of the Instagram executives, the objective of creating this version for minors is ensure your privacy and security. Likewise, Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, told BuzzFeed that they are aware of the problem with minors on Instagram currently. The problem is that more and more minors seek to join the social network and it is not easy to verify their age, mainly because they do not have an official verification document at such a young age (around 13 years old).
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A solution to this could be to create this version of Instagram for young people and children. Adam Mosseri said it would be a place “where parents have full transparency or control.” He also commented that the project is in a very early stage yet.
However, here is another point to take into account, and that is the fact that with an Instagram for minors the company welcomes minors into its ecosystem of products who will presumably stay there in the future. That is, a way to hook users before other competitors do. When they launched Messenger Kids a lot of criticism came up about this, asking Mark Zuckerberg to close the app.
Via | Buzzfeed
was originally published in
Engadget
for
Cristian Rus
.
