Dozens of state attorneys general press Facebook to abandon its plans for kids version of Instagram washingtonpost.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from washingtonpost.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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NE Attorney General finds Instagram Kids ‘very troubling’
A coalition of Attorneys General, including Nebraska s Doug Peterson, are asking Facebook to abandon the launch of Instagram Kids.
May 10, 2021 10:20 am
Instagram Kids will be a new version of Instagram designed for children under the age of 13.
The coalition is sent a letter to Facebook, the owner of Instagram, citing “serious concerns about the safety and well-being of children and the harm social media poses to young people.”
“The business model of almost all social media platforms is to get the user to be engaged on the screen for as long as possible. This allows companies like Instagram to accumulate extensive personal data on every user to be sold to advertisers. The fact that they now want to focus on collecting the data of children is very troubling,” stated AG Peterson.
Coalition Sends Letter Expressing Serious Concerns Over Safety and Well-Being of Children
Vermont Business Magazine Citing serious concerns about the safety and well-being of children and the harm social media poses to young people, Attorney General TJ Donovan has co-led a coalition of 44 attorneys general urging Facebook to abandon its plans to launch a version of Instagram for children under the age of 13. In a letter sent today to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the coalition contends that social media can be detrimental to children for many reasons and that Facebook has historically failed to protect the welfare of children on its platforms.
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With more children getting online, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is not the only stakeholder concerned about reevaluating regulations related to children’s online privacy. Certain members of Congress are also seeking to review the current landscape of compliance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Note that the FTC received public comments regarding possible changes in implementation of the enforcement of COPPA in December 2019, and will be responding soon.
Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.) sent a letter to the FTC on April 21 asking the government agency to investigate around 150 mobile applications accessible through mobile app stores. Their concerns are related to how app store platforms address apps directed to children, including providing apps with a way to market the application through platform-approved family-friendly designation. The letter alleges that t