{"id":86750,"date":"2021-09-28T18:36:51","date_gmt":"2021-09-28T22:36:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=86750"},"modified":"2021-09-28T18:36:51","modified_gmt":"2021-09-28T22:36:51","slug":"facebook-actually-had-to-be-shamed-to-shut-down-its-pedophile-attracting-instagram-kids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=86750","title":{"rendered":"Facebook actually had to be shamed to shut down its pedophile-attracting &#8220;Instagram Kids&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1><strong>Facebook Scraps &#8220;Instagram Kids&#8221; As Backlash Intensifies<\/strong><\/h1>\n<p><!--more-->ZeroHedge.com<\/p>\n<p>After being asked by a cadre of 40 state attorneys general to abandon the project (on the grounds it would be bad for psychological development and also create a &#8216;predator&#8217;s paradise&#8217;), Facebook&#8217;s Instagram announced Monday in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/about.instagram.com\/blog\/announcements\/pausing-instagram-kids\">a blog post<\/a>\u00a0that it has finally abandoned its ill-fated &#8220;Instagram Kids&#8221; service which was supposed to create a parallel version of the service for children under the age of 13.<\/p>\n<p>As it stands now, many (poorly supervised) youngsters are already using the adult versions of these services, being exposed to all the age-inappropriate content that comes with it (twitter still has straight-up porn).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/s3\/files\/inline-images\/ig_0.jpg?itok=uaNM7SSy\" data-image-external-href=\"\" data-image-href=\"\/s3\/files\/inline-images\/ig_0.jpg?itok=uaNM7SSy\" data-link-option=\"0\"><picture><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"inline-images image-style-inline-images\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/styles\/inline_image_mobile\/public\/inline-images\/ig_0.jpg?itok=uaNM7SSy\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"346\" data-entity-type=\"file\" data-entity-uuid=\"9811368a-6da8-46be-919d-c6ae2b195ff2\" data-responsive-image-style=\"inline_images\" \/><\/picture><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"Advert_desktop__1J5vD Advert_tablet__3QEBr Advert_mobile__1rlLc Advert_placement__1I4yb Advert_align__N0_fw\">\n<aside id=\"in-content-video\" class=\"Advert_verticallySpaced__wnPy3\">\n<div id=\"google_ads_iframe_\/21841313772,21778456762\/zerohedge\/in_content_video_0__container__\"><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<p>But somewhere along the line, as the backlash to the harms social media allegedly causes to teenage mental health and self esteem intensified, Facebook scrambled to find a solution that would, first and foremost, protect its bottom line by retaining its access to this massive pool of users. Thus, &#8220;Instagram Kids&#8221; &#8211; targeted at children under the age of 13\u00a0 &#8211; was born.<\/p>\n<p>It was immediately controversial, with the AGs asking Facebook to abandon the project (officially, one must by 13 or older to have a social media account on most services, yet kids can easily lie about their age online, and have been doing so for years) and numerous parental groups also criticizing it.<\/p>\n<p>Facebook meekly fought back, insisting the product wasn&#8217;t &#8220;toxic&#8221;. But the massive leak of internal documents showing Facebook was well aware of the negative impact its products &#8211; especially Instagram &#8211; were having on teenage mental health (while also exposing young children to abusers and sex traffickers).<\/p>\n<p>Back in April,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2021\/04\/24\/instagram-for-kids-would-create-a-child-predators-paradise\/\">the New York Post,<\/a>\u00a0owned by Facebook antagonist Rupert Murdoch, screamed in a headline that &#8220;Instagram for kids&#8221; would create a &#8220;predator&#8217;s paradise.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In a statement released on its blog, Instagram said it was &#8220;pausing&#8221; Instagram Kids, but firmly intended to return to it later after working with lawmakers and the public to help them understand why this type of product is necessary. &#8220;Children are already online,&#8221; the company insisted in its blog post.<\/p>\n<p>One simple, unavoidable, fact, according to Instagram, is that &#8220;kids are already online.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;&#8230;kids are getting phones younger and younger, misrepresenting their age, and downloading apps that are meant for those 13 or older.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Additionally, Instagram said it will continue to build new opt-in security measures for parents to set on their children&#8217;s accounts.<\/p>\n<p>The blog post even directly referenced the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/technology\/internal-study-finds-32-teen-girls-say-instagram-makes-me-feel-bad-about-my-body\">WSJ leaks, which showed how much Instagram knew about how its service hurts teens self esteem and also makes them vulnerable to sex trafficking<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Facebook was aware of the research at the time it was leaked, but didn&#8217;t seem be to doing much about it. And even now, with its promises of more parental controls, the actual language is vague and non-commital: &#8216;We announced last week that we\u2019re exploring two new ideas: encouraging people to look at other topics if they\u2019re dwelling on content that might contribute to negative social comparison, and a feature tentatively called &#8216;Take a Break,&#8217; where people could put their account on pause and take a moment to consider whether the time they\u2019re spending is meaningful.&#8217;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Whether &#8220;Instagram Kids&#8221; exists or not, Facebook and Instagram insist teens will be on social media no matter what. Instagram says it would be better if the company cultivated an age-appropriate experience strictly for them. Though it would probably better if they simply weren&#8217;t allowed to use the service at all. Is that something Facebook could control, perhaps? Like tightening information requirements for account holders?<\/p>\n<p>___<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/technology\/facebook-scraps-instagram-kids-backlash-intensifies\">https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/technology\/facebook-scraps-instagram-kids-backlash-intensifies<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Facebook Scraps &#8220;Instagram Kids&#8221; As Backlash Intensifies<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=86750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86750\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=86750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=86750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=86750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}