We as a society need to move away from social media. I hate saying that because there have been a lot of good things to come from social media, but I don’t know that the good outweighs the bad.
Facebook has another bad idea and it must be stopped!
The attorney generals in 40 different states along with those of other U.S. Territories have banded together to urge Facebook to not move forward with their plan on introducing a kid-version of Instagram for those under 13-years-old.
Executives at Instagram are planning to build a version of the popular photo-sharing app that can be used by children under the age of 13, according to an internal company post.
“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,” Vishal Shah, Instagram’s vice president of product, wrote on an employee message board on Thursday. “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.”
Like this is what kids need. Do you remember when you were a kid? What did you do? PLAY!
Just imagine this. These children are going to be subject to bullying, people posing as children under 13 as well who want to prey on little children, and countless other issues. How do I know this will happen? Because it happens to us adults every day. People on social media are so nasty and rude because they can hide behind their computer screens without worrying about getting punched in the mouth for saying something that they shouldn’t.
But perhaps the biggest thing is that children don’t need to be worrying and keeping up with a social media account. They are still developing and do not need social media to grow into good human beings. In fact, the opposite would happen.
In the letter to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the attorneys general wrote:
The undersigned attorneys general of Massachusetts, Nebraska, Vermont, Tennessee, Alaska, California, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Northern Mariana Islands, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming (collectively attorneys general) write regarding Facebook’s recently announced plans to launch a version of Instagram for children under the age of 13. The attorneys general urge Facebook to abandon these plans. Use of social media can be detrimental to the health and well-being of children, who are not equipped to navigate the challenges of having a social media account. Further, Facebook has historically failed to protect the welfare of children on its platforms. The attorneys general have an interest in protecting our youngest citizens, and Facebook’s plans to create a platform where kids under the age of 13 are encouraged to share content online is contrary to that interest.