Facebook's New Kid-Friendly Messenger App, Safe Haven or Lure?

By BARBARA ORTUTAY, AP Technology Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Facebook is coming for your kids.

The social media giant is launching a messaging app for children to chat with their parents and with friends approved by their parents.

The free app is aimed at kids under 13, who can't yet have their own accounts under Facebook's rules, though they often do.

Messenger Kids comes with a slew of controls for parents. The service won't let children add their own friends or delete messages — only parents can do that. Kids don't get a separate Facebook or Messenger account; rather, it's an extension of a parent's account.

A Kids-Focused Experience

While children do use messaging and social media apps designed for teenagers and adults, those services aren't built for them, said Kristelle Lavallee, a children's psychology expert who advised Facebook on designing the service.

"The risk of exposure to things they were not developmentally prepared for is huge," she said.

Messenger Kids, meanwhile, "is a result of seeing what kids like," which is images, emoji and the like. Face filters and playful masks can be distracting for adults, Lavallee said, but for kids who are just learning how to form relationships and stay in touch with parents digitally, they are ways to express themselves.

Lavallee, who is content strategist at the Center on Media and Child Health at Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard University, called Messenger Kids a "useful tool" that "makes parents the gatekeepers." But she said that while Facebook made the app "with the best of intentions," it's not yet known how people will actually use it.

As with other tools Facebook has released in the past, intentions and real-world use do not always match up. Facebook's live video streaming feature, for example, has been used for plenty of innocuous and useful things, but also to stream crimes and suicides.

 

Hooked on Facebook

Is Messenger Kids simply a way for Facebook to rope in the young ones?

Stephen Balkam, CEO of the nonprofit Family Online Safety Institute, said "that train has left the station."

Federal law prohibits internet companies from collecting personal information on kids under 13 without their parents' permission and imposes restrictions on advertising to them. This is why Facebook and many other social media companies prohibit younger kids from joining. Even so, Balkam said millions of kids under 13 are already on Facebook, with or without their parents' approval.

He said Facebook is trying to deal with the situation pragmatically by steering young Facebook users to a service designed for them.

Facebook said Messenger Kids won't show ads or collect data for marketing. Facebook also said it won't automatically move users to the regular Messenger or Facebook when they get old enough, though the company might give them the option to move contacts to Messenger down the line.

Messenger Kids is launching Monday in the U.S. on Apple devices — the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Versions for Android and Amazon's tablets are coming later.

China's Former Internet Regulator Under Investigation for Corruption

BEIJING (AP) — China's former top internet regulator and censor is being investigated by the ruling Communist Party's anti-corruption arm, the agency said Tuesday.

The party's anti-graft watchdog agency said in a brief statement on its website that Lu Wei is suspected of "serious violations of discipline." Until Tuesday's announcement, Lu had been deputy head of the party's propaganda department.

Lu was known as a hard-liner responsible for leading the government's efforts to tighten control over domestic cyberspace and championing the party's position that governments have a right to filter and censor their countries' internet.

He wielded enormous power over what 700 million Chinese internet users could view online and acted as the gatekeeper for technology companies wishing to do business in China.

No details were given in Tuesday's announcement, which comes after a party congress at which President Xi Jinping was given a second five-year term as party chief. Lu is the most senior Chinese official to be investigated since the party congress closed late last month.

Lu was suddenly replaced as cyberspace chief in June last year by his deputy, Xu Lin. Lu held on to his concurrent position of deputy head of propaganda but kept what observers thought was an uncharacteristically low profile.

Appointed in 2014 as China's top internet regulator, Lu held high-profile meetings with top executives from foreign technology and internet companies, including Apple chief executive Tim Cook, Microsoft's Satya Nadella, and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

Lu took a hard line in demanding tough security checks on imported foreign tech products and keeping out foreign internet companies and social networks like Facebook in the name of preserving social stability.

Lu's departure from the position has not led to any changes or easing of such demands and restrictions on information.

In recent years China has pushed cybersecurity regulations aimed at limiting technology imported from the West, which Beijing officials say is necessary given Edward Snowden's allegations of U.S. spying via "backdoors" inserted in exported U.S.-made hardware.

Lu worked his way up the ranks of China's official Xinhua News Agency from a reporting job in the city of Guilin in southern Guangxi province in the early 1990s to becoming the agency's vice president from 2004 to 2011. He was vice mayor of Beijing from 2011 to 2013.