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Comment by patja | Hacker News Reader

Curious about the use of the word messenger. Do you mean Facebook's Messenger? Isn't that only for age 13 and over?

There's a version for kids (0). Contact approvals go through the parents, there's a weekly report so you see who they spoke with, settings to prevent link sharing, curated GIFs (but that's as curated as YT Kids), etc. It's the only reason I signed into FB in the past decade.

Obviously they can just set up their own fake FB account and lie about their age (which frankly I already told her to never sign up to anything with any real information) but the rest of their friends need to as well for it to be of any use. At this age, we're not there yet

(0) https://messengerkids.com/

Thanks, this is new since my kids were under 13.

I understand why parents let their children lie in order to avoid social exclusion. Kids can be very cliquey and being excluded hurts.

I counseled my children that it is immoral to misrepresent yourself to someone in order to get them to give you something they otherwise would not (or are prohibited by law from doing so). I still remember my (now 24 year old) daughter gleefully signing up for Facebook on the morning of her 13th birthday.

All apps are 13+, it's a law thing. If companies go under that, they face intense scrutiny. Epic lost a case because of that already ($200M+ fine & years of supervision), Rovio is in hot water too.

Same issue with WhatsApp for example, but it's pretty much a requirement to have any social life after first grade over here. Also there is no way for anyone except a parent to report an underage WA user, so there are no repercussions.

"Parent permissions" is how they get around that one for underage kids. It's either a notification through the parent portal or you login with the Google account on the kids tablet. Not sure of the mechanism on iOS, but I imagine it's similar.

Once you give permission, it's free reign

Nope, not even parent permission. It's used as one factor to prove that they are not "marketing to children".

If you are considered as targeting your product to children, you get hit by a different set of laws than if it's an "adult" product.

Source: I just spent a few hours listening to our lawyer give a presentation about this and why we need to be clear in marketing to adults only.

Epic got hit with a $245M fine because they were seen as marketing to kids (along with other crap): https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/blog/2022/12/245-milli...

There's marketing and then there's using. Obviously they do restrict certain apps like Tinder and PH, but it's only those that are exclusively 18-over (and Epic since the fine).

Other apps like FB, TikTok, XBox and the rest that no child should go near (or anyone else for that matter) gives a prompt with something along the lines of "Ask your parents for permission". If I say OK, either from my account or by logging in on hers, the app is installed and can be used, even though her profile is under 13. They don't market to kids, but it's still available and still shows up in search.

It would be great if these legal actions do show real restriction for all apps that are rated 13-over, but then no more tablets for kids. That's going to cost manufacturers and ad-driven apps a ton of money so I don't see it happening outside of the FCC going directly after Apple and Google.

Source: I have a kid with an age-restricted tablet and just tested

To be clear: all of this happens when the device is set up by the parent to mark it explicitly as kids' device? I've never seen such things before.

When I was a kid, knowing what year to put in a DOB form to put yourself safely over 18 y.o. was the most basic "Internet 101" life skill, second only to knowing where to type a website address.

On Android they have something called Family Link where you link a device and mark it explicitly as a kid's device to set restrictions like time usage, banned apps, etc. The only way to change settings is through the parent account. And yes she ran some very clever social engineering to try to get in.

Almost got me once - my wife left her phone unlocked so my kid opened WA and wrote me a message asking to lift the time restriction for the rest of the day. Her mistake was sending an extra "thank you so much" with heart emoji, which I though was off. If not for that misstep she would have got me.

Obviously she was rewarded and we listened to one of the Darknet Diaries episodes on social engineering

> Isn't that only for age 13 and over

If your child has their own tablet set to their age, sure, but I know plenty of people who just let the kids use Mom's iPad

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