Introducing Messenger Kids

fuck this. i&#x27;m sorry i know this isn&#x27;t language appropriate to hn but fuck this.<p>does anyone believe this is really for the betterment of any child&#x27;s life? say anything you want about how children use messenger apps now and this just improves that experience for them but accommodations aside that&#x27;s basically the same excuse that drug dealers use - &quot;they&#x27;re going to get it from somewhere so they might as well get it from me&quot;. we all know this is just another vehicle for ads (their promises notwithstanding) and we all know that fb&#x2F;social media has pernicious effects on psychology, let alone child psychology.<p>i don&#x27;t live in a cabin in the woods and i&#x27;m not amish and i&#x27;m not a luddite (i consume technology more or less like everyone else) but yet still i challenge someone to show me the intrinsic value (as opposed to circumstantial to the fact that fb&#x2F;social media inundates us).

TLDR, Facebook wants your children to connect to you via a chat app.<p>I&#x27;m more than saddened to see that among the tech giants, they are encouraging _children_ to just use face filters and video chatting, rather than encouraging them to go outside and interact with friends in person. Why does an app made specifically for children and families need filters at all? It doesn&#x27;t really matter that they are not putting in ads in this app. It is still an app and it is still imprinting children to accept artificial, screen-based relationships as equal to real, in-person conversations with your family.<p>Facebook is transforming the most important relationships in your life to a product. Commericalized.

Wow. Just like tobacco companies targeting kids[0] Facebook is making sure their targets get hooked even younger.<p>&gt; After talking to thousands of parents, associations like National PTA, and parenting experts in the US<p>Which &quot;parenting experts&quot; are in favor of giving kids more time on electronics?<p>[0]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.scientificamerican.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;tobacco-companies-still-target-youth&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.scientificamerican.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;tobacco-companies...</a>

&gt;your child’s information isn’t used for ads<p>I’ll translate: Your child’s information will be used, but not for ads.

Whenever Facebook talks about trust, privacy and confidentiality they imply that they are to be trusted.<p>That&#x27;s simply not true.<p>&gt; <i>Facebook is opening up to children under age 13 with a privacy-focused app</i><p>I feel like I want to throw up.

Another brick in the walled garden of the Facebook internet of the future.<p>Now even kids below the age of 13 will have a Facebook account, setup by their parents who are already on Facebook anyway and enticed by exactly what they want to hear (&quot;More Fun For Kids, More Control For Parents&quot;) thanks to the marketing team.

I&#x27;m shocked by the overwhelmingly negative response here. Honestly I expect better when I come to Hackernews.<p>Facebook announces a novel app trying to solve common problems with kids using and communicating on the internet and everyone in the comments just comes out with their personal ax to grind with Facebook.<p>I get it. You hate Facebook, Facebook is a drug, Facebook kicked your dog. All of those might be valid criticisms, and if this was an article titled &#x27;Facebook is destroying everything&#x27; I would be very interested in reading those opinions.<p>But as it is, all I see are shallow criticisms of Facebook as a whole rather than any kind of nuanced discussion of the Messenger for Kids app.<p>Personally I&#x27;m intrigued by the idea. Kids want to communicate using the internet (and before the internet it was phone numbers and texting), but this is the first time I&#x27;ve seen an approach that really helps parents to monitor who their kids are connecting to on the app.<p>Maybe Facebook is the wrong company to present this app; maybe the connection to Facebook is concerning. But the app itself I think represents the right direction to go in designing apps that minors can use to communicate and helping parents to keep their kids safe online.

&gt; There are no ads in Messenger Kids and your child’s information isn’t used for ads.<p>I do wonder what quantity of data Facebook will collect on child users of this service though, and how that could be used. I’m not too well versed in COPPA outside of account creation restrictions, but I would hope that it has provisions for data collection on children.

The current situation is that if you leave Facebook you risk missing out on friends or family&#x27;s various events, updates and so on but that is mostly just annoying. This moves the needle slightly. If Facebook can convince families to organise themselves through Facebook, not being on Facebook becomes much more stigmatising than before. Very powerful stuff.

There is already a secure app for kids, it&#x27;s called Signal. I&#x27;d say secure channels are what kids need and not constant parental surveillance. In my opinion, when you decide that kids are old enough to use a smartphone, you should teach them how to use it responsibly and not censor &#x2F; snoop around unless they have a problem and ask for help.

Just a question of time until Europe starts having issues with this. Rightfully so.

Doesn&#x27;t this contradict FB&#x27;s terms and conditions [1]<p>I quote:<p>&gt; You will not use Facebook if you are under 13.<p>[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.facebook.com&#x2F;terms.php" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.facebook.com&#x2F;terms.php</a>

What can we do to protect our world from the the mega-corps degrading society and eating our souls with their moral compass lacking commercialisation of our very existence? Serious question.

And this is why we must force our kids to watch &quot;Enemy of The State&quot; and perhaps &quot;Person of Interest &quot; (episodes where Samaritan is up) every holiday. I think its a good introduction to the value of privacy for kids.

I think about 95% of posts in this thread are currently negative (IMO a great thing!). I’d be interested what the reception will be like in the broader population. If this sentiment is universal, Facebook has a big problem - it would mean trust has eroded to the point that most people only grudgingly use it, and to me that cries for disruption.

This is messed up

Get them hooked early. Revenue for the future.

&gt;&gt; This preview is available on the App Store for iPad, iPod touch, and iPhone.<p>Does FB typically not include Android on betas?

See Pied Piper? This is how you legally surveil underage users.<p>for the lazy: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.facebook.com&#x2F;help&#x2F;118909212153483" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.facebook.com&#x2F;help&#x2F;118909212153483</a>

What a great move by Facebook.<p>Understanding how kids engage with software is the perfect way to figure out what the future of software will be.