Introducing Messenger Kids | Hacker News Reader

Introducing Messenger Kids

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60 pointsadidash76 comments

fuck this. i'm sorry i know this isn't language appropriate to hn but fuck this.

does anyone believe this is really for the betterment of any child's life? say anything you want about how children use messenger apps now and this just improves that experience for them but accommodations aside that's basically the same excuse that drug dealers use - "they're going to get it from somewhere so they might as well get it from me". we all know this is just another vehicle for ads (their promises notwithstanding) and we all know that fb/social media has pernicious effects on psychology, let alone child psychology.

i don't live in a cabin in the woods and i'm not amish and i'm not a luddite (i consume technology more or less like everyone else) but yet still i challenge someone to show me the intrinsic value (as opposed to circumstantial to the fact that fb/social media inundates us).

I actually agree with you that this is "drug dealer" tactics but for totally different reasons. I think this is a classic "the first hit is free" move.

It's a long-term play. I believe FB when they say they won't show ads to kids, or use their chats for ad scraping. What they really want is for those kids to become so familiar and dependent on the system (FB), that they naturally transition to being active FB users as adults.

It's not a secret that FB has a perceived "uncool with kids" problem - hence the rise of things like Snapchat. If you hook them when they're really young, though, then FB just becomes an unquestioned part of life.

As far as the tool itself, i dunno - I mean messenger tools have been a fact of life for quite some time now. AIM, ICQ, etc. I don't think FB messenger is particularly different other than the fact that it's attached to, well, FB.

Watching my children I would argue its a desperate attempt to get children under the age of 16 using Facebook as they just don't.

Both children attend a Music group which has used a facebook group for years. The older children (17-18) all have active facebook profiles - the younger children don't they use Instagram and Snapchat...

>I believe FB when they say they won't show ads to kids, or use their chats for ad scraping.

why do you believe this? i have no reason to believe it (since their entire business model is targeted ads) except the "first hit is free" alternate hypothesis.

does fb have a single "loss leader" feature?

> why do you believe this?

Because why say it otherwise? Facebook could've easily left all of that out and just said "Introducing messenger for kids! We're making sure it's carefully curated and safe for your children" etc. etc.

People would've speculated that it was being used for ads, sure, but it wouldn't have caused a major outrage. I'd bet significant sums of money that most (not all, obviously) parents don't really care about their children being advertised to or used for market research - I mean hell, TV was doing that way before FB was a thing. Most parents probably worry about more obvious things w.r.t. children chatting online: Bullying, talking to strangers, etc.

Saying "we're not scraping childrens' messages" and then turning around and doing exactly that would be such a monumental PR disaster if it ever came out. I don't think FB is quite that stupid. They're clearly focused on the long-term.

Another possibility is that they're actually just legally barred from scraping messages sent by children, and this is them putting a PR spin on "we're complying with the law!"

So basically, I just don't see a lot of benefit to promising not to scrape messages if they really want to do that.

> If you hook them when they're really young, though, then FB just becomes an unquestioned part of life.

Exactly like religion. Facebook is learning from the best!

I've been wondering what the implications of a fully documented life on the internet will bring in the next 30-50 years.

Presumably, these kids have had and will have their entire lives documented on the internet (and most likely by a single platform, FB). From the time they were conceived (or ever before, a lot of parents having their first children were in middle or high school when FB became popular) until their death (or FB goes away, whichever is more likely) will be documented.

Facebook keeps spewing this "we won't do evil" rhetoric, but so far I don't see any evidence that they are using their powers for good.

Between the photos, psychological insights gathered from chats and posts, biometrics from face scanning, and even nude pics (but only to stop revenge porn, they swear!) - Facebook will know more about these kids then anyone else.

I can't imagine a scenario where hoarding all this information is even remotely useful, let alone what could happen if a major data breach happens.

I know it's a bit like throwing bottled water on a house fire, but I have been actively encouraging peers to at least be selective about what they share on Facebook. We have to resist the urge to overshare before it's too late, if it isn't already.

I like to joke that everyone born past 1994 will never go into politics due to the sheer amount of damning cringeworthy material online from their teenage years.

Saw this post before it had any comments and now back and glad to see this is the first comment. These people have no boundaries or qualms. Drug dealing to minors is all this is.

Meh. A lot of us nerds on HN spent our youths in chatrooms and forums. This isn't very different. In fact, I would have loved to be able to play with face filters when I was a kid. This isn't a Las Vegas-esque game that costs money, this is communication with friends and family. It's addictive, yes, but it's addictive for the same reason talking to other people is addictive, because it's fun and it stimulates the lower rungs of our maslowian pyramid.

i spent my childhood on icq/irc/aim as well. this is different because the entirety of those systems was chat. the entirety of this system is analytics and the way it's being palletized is chat.

Those systems also had a very different dynamic because of the limits on non-textual communication. If you had a camera and if you had a decent connect you might be able to upload your crappy 640x480 picture to someone in 2 minutes or so, otherwise you were limited to emoticons.

Plus, irc was and is a great resource.

Totally agree. Fuck this Mark. We don't need this social brain F for kids. I know you are totally disrupting and revolutionizing how 10 years old socialize. No thanks. I will just be at home consoling my daughter and trying to explain in bigger words why this is a bad idea and why I don't want her chatting with her friends, with a phone.

Exactly. This is due to the fact that young people have not embraced facebook and use other networks, it's their attempt to get into a demographic that's lost to them. I'd wager they'll have to keep shopping around to get the kids, the name and logo are tainted.

Fully agreed. When I was a kid if I wanted to "connect" with my friends I'd go out in the neighborhood and socialize with them. The most "interactive online play" I had, was writing cringe worthy stuff on other friends' profiles on Orkut. Seriously though, does Facebook think that a bunch of eleven year olds have a social network so big that they need an app to stay in touch? they're simply discouraging kids to go outside and develop human relationships.

TLDR, Facebook wants your children to connect to you via a chat app.

I'm more than saddened to see that among the tech giants, they are encouraging _children_ to just use face filters and video chatting, rather than encouraging them to go outside and interact with friends in person. Why does an app made specifically for children and families need filters at all? It doesn't really matter that they are not putting in ads in this app. It is still an app and it is still imprinting children to accept artificial, screen-based relationships as equal to real, in-person conversations with your family.

Facebook is transforming the most important relationships in your life to a product. Commericalized.

Apple positions Facetime exactly the same way. The differences are that people imagine Apple with a halo and the high price of an iPad for each toddler.

My sense is that Apple is in less of a position to use child data for exploitative purposes, because their aim is to sell hardware. It bestows the sense that Apple isn’t trying to exploit children for data, at least beyond selling them more hardware. In facebook’s case, selling the data is their entire business model, and that should make us nervous.

The forty years Apple has been pitching to children means that a toddler's great-grand-parents may have bought an Apple II for the toddler's grand parents. Apple's marketing at children has been going on so long it is background noise. The brand's halo has been carefully curated by associating with Disney and product placement in movies. The final scene of The Book Thief shows that Apple will market over top of the Holocaust.

Going to play devil's advocate and ask, did you really expect a tech company to encourage children to avoid all of their products and go play outside like they did 30 years ago when these companies never even existed? Of course they want children and people of all ages on their services. It's in their best interest to get the majority of folks using their platform.

I seriously have no idea why this is so hard to understand.

Niantic doesn't seem to have a problem with this.

Their situation is not an either/or, it's both. It's an awesome model and I think eventually a lot of companies will replicate something similar using AR.

Thanks for pointing that out though!

Sure. I am thinking of the classic "How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World," in which there is a discussion of natures. It strikes me that Niantic produced a product which resonated with the nature of kids. Apple in the Jobs days strove to produce technology that was consonant with human nature, which meant they sometimes seemed slow but built things that made sense, and made obvious decisions quickly (no ad tracking in iMessage, for instance). Even Google in its early days built a search product that was quite more human than competitors. Products that irritate human nature can succeed, but perhaps not for too long.

A bit luddite don't you think? Nobody encouraged me or you back when we were children to go online and chat using IRC instead of going outside to interact with friends in person, yet we did. I'm sure a lot of parents would prefer a more monitored environment (claimed) than IRC and such.

> I'm sure a lot of parents would prefer a more monitored environment (claimed) than IRC and such.

I'd prefer no chat client whatsoever, which I can enforce as a parent.

Not a luddite, have just seen the damage large tech corporations have caused to societal fabric in the name of profits and keeping that out of our family.

Disclaimer: Grew up on EFnet, would rather have my kids playing outside.

If Facebook doesn't do it someone else is going to do it.

https://kids.youtube.com

Same logic works for any crime.

False dichotomy. It's not a choice between connecting in-person and via app; it's a choice between connecting with particular person via app or not spending time with them in any way.

what percentage of people that you keep in touch with over social media that aren't in your immediate vicinity?

In my case that's roughly 10 people. The only one I regularly see and hold strong online conversations with is my girlfriend.

This is probably true for of most people not living in their hometown or having connections through college or work.

I regularly keep in touch with quite a few coworkers that have moved away. Not to mention college friends who all went their separate ways.

Most of them. Best case, it's a friend that I would see every second weekend or so, but chat with and comment every day.

Wow. Just like tobacco companies targeting kids[0] Facebook is making sure their targets get hooked even younger.

> After talking to thousands of parents, associations like National PTA, and parenting experts in the US

Which "parenting experts" are in favor of giving kids more time on electronics?

[0]: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tobacco-companies...

It's not about giving kids more time on electronics, it's about giving kids access to a more sheltered and moderated environment. As mentioned earlier, a lot of "us" were on completely open and unmoderated IRC and ICQ networks back when we were the age this app is aimed at. So many underage people have gotten their share of perverts and abuse and whatnot on those. I'm not saying this app is good or Facebook saves the children or whatever, I'm saying that the alternative is unfiltered chat.

Ok, that makes sense. So, it's essentially a necessary evil. In the end, though, facebook wins.

> Which "parenting experts" are in favor of giving kids more time on electronics?

The target audience is using cellphones and SMS already; this isn't about more time on electronics, it's about the particular electronic communication medium (for parents, it's about control, for FB it's about getting nindshare early so they don't get displaced by something else becoming popular with youth.)

So companies manufacturing baby phone toys are just sneaky drug dealers trying to addict children to telephone drug?

Chat is a communication tool. Why so much hate for facebook chat app? None of that I've seen when facebook dumped ton of brain dead (often pay to win) games on children or when apple did the same with their app store.

> manufacturing baby phone toys

There's no market for baby phone toys for adults. However, kids who get into the facebook ecosystem via "messenger kids" could be locked in for years.

> Chat is a communication tool.

I agree that it's much better than games, but it's still a way to get kids attached to a system that they don't fully understand. Yes, it's just a chat app, but, given that facebook is a business, its ultimate purpose is to make money.

> There's no market for baby phone toys for adults.

Adult equivalent of baby toy phone is a phone (landline, cell, whatever). You might as well argue that people who as children were hooked on baby phones will use a phone as adults. Which is trivially true because everyone will use a phone as adult.

Same thing with chat. Children addicted to children's facebook chat will use some form of chat in the future because everyone will. They are already using chats. LoL in-game chat for example. Recently 10 year old from my extended family thanked me through Clash Royale in-game clan chat for some random promotional stuff my girlfriend gathered during shopping and passed to him through her brother.

> ... kids attached to a system that they don't fully understand.

This pretty much describes any system kids are attached to and many systems adults are attached to.

> it's just a chat app, but, given that facebook is a business, its ultimate purpose is to make money.

So? Same goes for anything. TV, print, games, sports, clothes, even partially education if you live in US. Should you avoid attaching your children to all of those systems?

The only thing you should do for your children is to make sure Facebook is not the only chat app, that some better chats can be created and alive even if they don't have as much money for lawyers and greasing the wheels as facebook has. You can do that by coercing companies to disclose details of their technology or at least stop helping them protect it. You want to create new chat product? Fine, but you have to release protocol that your chat app uses so anyone can write a client. Your protocol docs are outdated? Company gets a fine of amount associated with their revenue, operational costs or whatever number that correlates with their success that their accountants can't hide.

That's true. Facebook isn't the only problem, and there's not really any way around the new economy of attention in exchange for money. Though it's not particularly groundbreaking, it's frustrating to see yet another instance of a company invading the lives of its users even more.

>your child’s information isn’t used for ads

I’ll translate: Your child’s information will be used, but not for ads.

The seed planted in youth need not yield fruit. At maturity, it will provide a lifetime of advertising revenue.

Or maybe for ads, but not ads for your kid. Maybe you'll start to see lots of LEGO ads or whatever!

For now.

Whenever Facebook talks about trust, privacy and confidentiality they imply that they are to be trusted.

That's simply not true.

> Facebook is opening up to children under age 13 with a privacy-focused app

I feel like I want to throw up.

Another brick in the walled garden of the Facebook internet of the future.

Now even kids below the age of 13 will have a Facebook account, setup by their parents who are already on Facebook anyway and enticed by exactly what they want to hear ("More Fun For Kids, More Control For Parents") thanks to the marketing team.

> Now even kids below the age of 13 will have a Facebook account

They already had, they were just lying about their age. Anecdata: all of my colleagues with children let their child create a Facebook and Whatsapp account (that one is really big here in the Netherlands) at age 10, because not doing so means having your kid be the one child in class without it (with all the bullying and ostracization that implies).

This comment needs to be higher; kids will get on messenger apps regardless. The previous generation used MSN Messenger and such.

I'm shocked by the overwhelmingly negative response here. Honestly I expect better when I come to Hackernews.

Facebook announces a novel app trying to solve common problems with kids using and communicating on the internet and everyone in the comments just comes out with their personal ax to grind with Facebook.

I get it. You hate Facebook, Facebook is a drug, Facebook kicked your dog. All of those might be valid criticisms, and if this was an article titled 'Facebook is destroying everything' I would be very interested in reading those opinions.

But as it is, all I see are shallow criticisms of Facebook as a whole rather than any kind of nuanced discussion of the Messenger for Kids app.

Personally I'm intrigued by the idea. Kids want to communicate using the internet (and before the internet it was phone numbers and texting), but this is the first time I've seen an approach that really helps parents to monitor who their kids are connecting to on the app.

Maybe Facebook is the wrong company to present this app; maybe the connection to Facebook is concerning. But the app itself I think represents the right direction to go in designing apps that minors can use to communicate and helping parents to keep their kids safe online.

> Maybe Facebook is the wrong company to present this app

Of course it's wrong. Why would you continue giving more free data to this evil monopoly?

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DK2tcZbU8AA0Trn.jpg

I would use Signal instead to communicate with my kid if necessary.

That works if you need to communicate with them one-to-one. But does Signal let you easily add any other Signal user as a contact? What about when your kid wants to talk to their friends on the app?

To me the appeal of what Facebook is doing here is that it lets you give your kids freedom to use the app while letting you as a parent create the whitelist of who they're able to talk to.

Signal works with phone numbers, so you can talk to any contact that is also on the app. There is no parental control but how do you assume kids can't text random people. Blocking/banning makes users highly creative.

> There are no ads in Messenger Kids and your child’s information isn’t used for ads.

I do wonder what quantity of data Facebook will collect on child users of this service though, and how that could be used. I’m not too well versed in COPPA outside of account creation restrictions, but I would hope that it has provisions for data collection on children.

There you go... data shared with pretty much who they like (Within the mighty Fb group):

"Our vendors and service providers. We may transfer information we collect to third party service providers that support our business, such as companies that provide technical infrastructure or support (like a content delivery network), provide customer service, or analyze how Messenger Kids is being used to help us improve the service. These partners must adhere to strict data confidentiality and security obligations set out in the agreements we enter with them (such as compliance with data privacy and protection laws and maintenance of administrative, physical and technical safeguards to prevent unauthorized access or disclosure of data) that are consistent with this Privacy Policy, including obligations that they only use the information we provide for performance of the services we specify.

Facebook Family of Companies. Messenger Kids is part of Facebook, and we may share the information we collect in Messenger Kids within the family of companies that are part of Facebook to support the uses described above, and to improve the services provided by the FB family of companies. For example, parents use Facebook Messenger to communicate with their children on Messenger Kids, and Facebook uses information from Messenger Kids to support seamless cross-service communication."

https://www.facebook.com/help/118909212153483

(Edit for typo)

They will monitor them for signs of depression and make sure the "right" people are aware of it.

The current situation is that if you leave Facebook you risk missing out on friends or family's various events, updates and so on but that is mostly just annoying. This moves the needle slightly. If Facebook can convince families to organise themselves through Facebook, not being on Facebook becomes much more stigmatising than before. Very powerful stuff.

There is already a secure app for kids, it's called Signal. I'd say secure channels are what kids need and not constant parental surveillance. In my opinion, when you decide that kids are old enough to use a smartphone, you should teach them how to use it responsibly and not censor / snoop around unless they have a problem and ask for help.

Just a question of time until Europe starts having issues with this. Rightfully so.

Does Europe have an issue with Youtube Kids? With kids using Facebook / Messenger / Whatsapp / etc without being the age they are supposed to be according to the T&C?

Well, I was thinking of this case (from a German Newspaper, but I am sure there are English sources somewhere as well.)

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=y&prev...

Doesn't this contradict FB's terms and conditions [1]

I quote:

> You will not use Facebook if you are under 13.

[1]: https://www.facebook.com/terms.php

This isn't Facebook, it's Facebook Messenger for Kids. It's linked to a parents' account (who usually are above 13), so they are legally responsible in the end.

What can we do to protect our world from the the mega-corps degrading society and eating our souls with their moral compass lacking commercialisation of our very existence? Serious question.

I'd hate to go all political but it seems pretty obvious lately: go out and vote

Don't vote Republican. In the EU it's much less of an issue thankfully but still, vote for the right party and not the popular or nationalistic party.

How about a "keep your e-paws off our kids" boycott? Literally the only thing which could work at this point.

And this is why we must force our kids to watch "Enemy of The State" and perhaps "Person of Interest " (episodes where Samaritan is up) every holiday. I think its a good introduction to the value of privacy for kids.

I think about 95% of posts in this thread are currently negative (IMO a great thing!). I’d be interested what the reception will be like in the broader population. If this sentiment is universal, Facebook has a big problem - it would mean trust has eroded to the point that most people only grudgingly use it, and to me that cries for disruption.

This is messed up

Get them hooked early. Revenue for the future.

It might also get at least 1 additional adult that may not have had an account otherwise :/

So baby phone toys is just entry drug peddled by big teleco?

>> This preview is available on the App Store for iPad, iPod touch, and iPhone.

Does FB typically not include Android on betas?

See Pied Piper? This is how you legally surveil underage users.

for the lazy: https://www.facebook.com/help/118909212153483

What a great move by Facebook.

Understanding how kids engage with software is the perfect way to figure out what the future of software will be.

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