Instagram will “pause” work on a standalone Instagram for Kids app, and fold some of its planned features into the main Instagram app for now.
Delaying the launch of Instagram for Kids will give the company “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,” says Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram.
Mosseri denies that the move is “an acknowledgement that the project is a bad idea.” It’s necessary, he says, because “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.”
But it comes several months after the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG) urged Facebook to scrap plans for Instagram for Kids, citing concerns about the safety and well-being of children and the harm social media poses to young people. More recently, Instagram and Facebook have dealt with a damning series of stories from The Wall Street Journal, which paint both companies as unwilling to take any serious steps to stop harmful or misleading content from circulating on their services.
Last night, Instagram pushed back on the most recent JournalJournal story, which says Instagram knows its app is toxic for teens, particularly girls. Mosseri did the same this morning; “I don’t agree with how the Journal has reported on our research,” he says.
“We do research like this so we can make Instagram better,” Mosseri says. “That means our insights often shed light on problems, but they inspire new ideas and changes to Instagram. Examples include our industry leading anti-bullying work such as Restrict, Hidden Words and Limits, and our recent changes to make Instagram accounts private by default for those under 16.”
Up next: Instagram will expand tools that let parents supervise their child’s use of Instagram to teen accounts (those 13 and older). “These new features, which parents and teens can opt into, will give parents the tools to meaningfully shape their teen’s experience. We’ll have more to share on this in the coming months,” Mosseri says.
Currently, those under 13 are banned from Instagram (largely to comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act), though age-verification features are not particularly robust, making it easy for some pre-teens to create accounts on the app.
