Instagram Hits The Pause Button On Development Of ‘Instagram Kids’

Earlier this year, it was revealed that Facebook was working on an Instagram Kids. This would basically create a version of Instagram whose contents would be more kids-friendly, kind of like what Google did with YouTube Kids. However, it seems that Facebook’s plans have since been put on hold.

According to a post by Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, “We firmly believe that it’s better for parents to have the option to give their children access to a version of Instagram that is designed for them — where parents can supervise and control their experience — than relying on an app’s ability to verify the age of kids who are too young to have an ID.”

He adds, “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.”

The post says that critics have pointed out that a dedicated platform for kids is a bad idea, but Mosseri counters this by saying that kids are already online, and that acknowledging it and developing a platform specifically for it would be better. Mosseri also notes that the version that they had intended to build would not be the same as the current Instagram, and it won’t have ads and will only display age-appropriate content.

That being said, we imagine that there are complexities to building such a platform. Even Google didn’t necessarily get it right with YouTube Kids. In any case, it looks like plans for the platform have since been paused but when it is expected to resume (if at all) is anyone’s guess.

Tyler Lee
Categories: General
Tags: Facebook, Instagram