In an effort to get children addicted early, Facebook is working on a version of Instagram for kids

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Instagram is a wildly popular image-sharing social media site that is owned by Facebook. As of now, users must be 13 or older to create an Instagram account. However, according to a report from Buzzfeed News, Facebook is apparently working on a version of Instagram that will be for kids under the age of 13.

This news comes from an internal report from the company. Vishal Shah, Instagram’s vice president of products says in the document,

“I’m excited to announce that going forward, we have identified youth work as a priority for Instagram and have added it to our H1 priority list. We will be building a new youth pillar within the Community Product Group to focus on two things: (a) accelerating our integrity and privacy work to ensure the safest possible experience for teens and (b) building a version of Instagram that allows people under the age of 13 to safely use Instagram for the first time.”

Currently, Instagram requires that all users be 13 or older when creating a profile on the platform. The new platform seems to be a way to combat bullying and predation on the site. Just recently the company published a blog post discussing how important it is to keep young people safe on the internet, noting that it was adding new features to protect teens on the platform.

There is no timetable for a new Instagram for kids. The report mentioned above did state that the project will be overseen by the head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, as well as Facebook VP Pavni Diwanji. Diwanji worked on such projects as YouTube Kids while she was with Google.

It looks like tapping into the younger market is Facebook’s next goal on its quest to bring its products to everyone. It will be interesting to see how children are protected if and when this site becomes a reality. And that’s not even getting into what it could be doing to children’s brains.

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