Facebook announced a new messaging service for children as young as six. They promise parental controls and policies in place to ban inappropriate content and cyberbullying, but is it an app that parents should allow their young children to use?

Facebook, the world’s largest social network (which requires users to be at least 13 years old) has created a messaging app for children, 6 to 12-years-old.

Messenger Kids has parental controls and policies in place to ban inappropriate content and cyberbullying, but that doesn’t make the service exempt from Facebook’s pattern of moderation failures. And in the event a child is harassed or exposed to banned content in Messenger Kids, the burden falls in part on Facebook’s human moderators to act. Facebook says they will have specialized reviewers [for Messenger Kids] that will look for other signs of potential abuse and take appropriate action, whether it’s removing specific messages or entire accounts for repeated abuse.

Parents have to be Facebook friends with the parents of any kid that their kid wants to talk to. Once a parent adds someone to their child’s contact list through the main Facebook app, kids can video chat as well as send photos, videos, and texts, or pick something from “a library of kid-appropriate and specially chosen GIFs, frames, stickers, masks, and drawing tools,” according to Facebook’s announcement post.

Facebook claims their new app gives parents control over how long their kids can use the app. Messenger Kids includes a tool that lets kids report when someone is being “mean,” and, according to Facebook’s product manager, both humans and machines at Facebook will be moderating the space for inappropriate content. When detected (or if, given Facebook’s shoddy moderating history), such content will be scrubbed from the app.
Should you allow your child to use this app?

I think there are two important issues for parents to consid ...