“Any experience we develop must prioritise safety and privacy, and we will consult with experts in child development. Having initially said it saw Instagram for Kids as a “priority”, and hiring the brains behind YouTube Kids to launch it, the company is now being emollient. Where will it all end? Depends how far Facebook wants to push it. ( YouTube says its creators are asked to disclose any such placement.) Critics point to YouTube Kids, which, although also ad-free (as Instagram for Kids will be), has, they claim, used product placement to influence young users. They will carry on lying about their age and stick to the “grownup” site, while the seven-year-olds who do use the new one will inevitably be exposed to social media pressures. Child experts argue that kids over, say, 11 won’t want to use a “babyish” site designed for seven-year-olds. Facebook says it has now fixed the problem. Unfortunately, another of its platforms aimed at younger users, Messenger Kids, which was set up with a similar rationale, was shown to be porous to strangers via group chats. “We want to improve this situation by delivering experiences that give parents visibility and control over what their kids are doing,” it says. How has Facebook responded? It argues that it’s better to have dedicated spaces for children to stop them lying to get on to adult sites where there is no parental oversight. Further, Facebook has historically failed to protect the welfare of children on its platforms.” They are reflecting the concerns of child safety experts, who worry about body-shaming, cyberbullying and possible sexual grooming. Their reasons? “Use of social media can be detrimental to the health and wellbeing of children, who are not equipped to navigate the challenges of having a social media account. On Monday, attorneys general from across the country wrote to Mark Zuckerberg demanding he abandon the plan. Now Facebook wants to create an Instagram site specially tailored for children that they can use legally.

At present, under-13s are not supposed to use the photo-sharing app, although many lie about their age to do so.

What on earth are you on about? Well, it was revealed in March that Facebook was developing an Instagram service for kids. Appearance: Ad-free, in case we corrupt the young.

Messenger kids