Instagram Kids app on hold; Makers promise to build better parental supervision control

After facing criticism from US lawmakers and advocacy groups, Instagram, a photo and video-sharing social networking platform, on Monday, announced to temporarily halt working on the newer version of Instagram meant for people under the age of 13, often referred to as Instagram Kids. The company in its blog post has mentioned bouncing back with updated tools that allow the parents to have the option to give their children access to a version of Instagram that is specially designed for them. 
The social media platform noted that the kids are getting phones at a younger age and therefore it is necessary to update the platform according to their age. 

"While we stand by the need to develop this experience, we’ve decided to pause this project. This will give us time to work with parents, experts, policymakers and regulators, to listen to their concerns, and to demonstrate the value and importance of this project for younger teens online today," Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram said in a blog post on September 27.

Kids are already online

"Critics of Instagram Kids will see this as an acknowledgement that the project is a bad idea. That’s not the case. The reality is that kids are already online, and we believe that developing age-appropriate experiences designed specifically for them is far better for parents than where we are today, "added Mosseri. He, further said that Instagram was not the first social media platform that has a dedicated platform for those under 13. He named YouTube and TikTok and some other social media platforms which have the same feature. He maintained that the newer platform was engineered to deal with the younger kids, especially between 10-12 years.

"It will require parental permission to join, it won’t have ads, and it will have age-appropriate content and features. Parents can supervise the time their children spend on the app and oversee who can message them, who can follow them and who they can follow. The list goes on," added Head of the Facebook Inc owned photo-sharing app.

Instagram requires users to provide birthday, AI to detect wrong details

Earlier in August, the photo and video sharing app announced that users have to confirm their birthdays before proceeding to any other activity, to make the platform "safe for all". According to the statement released by Instagram, the information entered by the users would allow them to create new safety features for young people, and also, it would help ensure providing the right experiences to the right age group. Citing an example of their recent changes, the platform says it has started to set accounts of people aged under 16 into a private setting. Though this would be the default setting offered by the platform, users can customise according to their interests. It has also prevented adults from sending messages to people under 18 who don’t follow them.

Image: Souvik Banerjee/Unsplash/Representative