After YouTube Kids and Messenger Kids, a version of Instagram for 'under 13' could arrive, an area also protected by the European privacy law (GDPR), whose personal data have become a significant problem with the advent of social networks.
So much so that a few weeks ago, following an intervention by the Italian Privacy Guarantor after some news stories, TikTok decided to ask users for their age, so as to intercept and delete the profiles of members under 13.
Instagram's project is to create an environment that is controlled and supervised by parents.
"I am thrilled to announce that for the near future we have identified the very young as a priority for Instagram - writes Vishal Shah, vice president of product of the company, on a bulletin board intended for employees, a communication intercepted by the site Buzz Feed News - We will focus on two things: accelerate our integrity and privacy work to ensure the safest experience possible for teens and build a version of Instagram that allows people under the age of 13 to use it safely for the first time. "
According to rumors, the project would be supervised by Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, and led by Pavni Diwanji, who was hired by Facebook in December and who previously worked for Google on the YouTube Kids project.
Mosseri specified to the newspaper that the project is at an early stage and that the company does not yet have a detailed plan.
The post intercepted by Buzz Feed comes a few days after an Instagram squeeze on the 'under 13', with artificial intelligence technologies and safety warnings to make it clear to the very young to be more cautious in conversations with adults.
The minors and children issue must be handled with care from different points of view, as the popularity of social media among the very young (see the explosion of TikTok) can represent an opportunity for the big names in hitech to retain a growing segment.
In September 2019, the US Federal Trade Commission fined Google $ 170 million for collecting data on YouTube without parental consent to show them relevant ads.
And in 2017 Facebook released a special version of Messenger for kids, controlled by parents.
Two years later the company had to fix a bug that allowed little ones to chat with adult contacts, even unapproved ones.
Not to mention that at the launch of the product a group of associations that deal with children's health asked Mark Zuckerberg to withdraw it because he encouraged children to use social networks and devices, threatening their development.