Social media and tech giant, Facebook, has announced the extension of Messenger Kids, a special version of its messaging app aimed at kids under 13 years of age, to 70 new countries. Unfortunately no African country is included in this new list of countries but Facebook says more countries may be coming soon
Messenger Kids is a video chat and messaging app that helps kids connect with friends and family in a fun, parent-controlled space.
The messaging app was first introduced three years ago and rolled out in US alone. And now that it is being rolled out to other countries, Facebook is rolling out three new new options to help parents connect kids with their friends.
Supervised Friending
Hitherto, it was up to parents to invite and approve every contact for their child. Now with Supervised Friending, parents can choose to allow their kids to also accept, reject, add or remove contacts, while maintaining the ability to override any new contact approvals from the Parent Dashboard.
When a kid takes a friending action, parents will be notified through Messenger and can override any new connections made by going to the Parent Dashboard, where they will also be able to see a log of recent activities.
Supervised Friending will start rolling out today in the US and will gradually roll out to the rest of the world.
Connecting Kids Through Groups
Just as parents allow a teacher or coach to help their child navigate classroom or team friendships, this new feature gives parents the choice to approve a similar adult to help connect their child with other kids through a group in Messenger Kids. These approved adults can only connect kids whose parents have also granted this adult the same approval. This feature will be available starting today in the US, and will gradually roll out to the rest of the world. Teachers, coaches, parents and other leaders can access this feature here.
Helping Kids Connect with More Friends
Parents can now elect to make their kid’s name and profile photo visible to friends of their kid’s contacts and their parents, kids of the parent’s Facebook friends, and kids of people parents invite to download the Messenger Kids app. This feature will roll out to the rest of the world in the coming weeks.
In conclusion, Antigone Davis, Global Head of Safety reassures parents saying “Parental control is at the heart of Messenger Kids. Parents manage who their kids interact with and can monitor their child’s activity in the app through the Parent Dashboard, where they can also download their child’s information at any time. We know privacy and security are particularly important when it comes to kids online, and we take the responsibility to protect kids’ information seriously.
No African country is included in this new list of countries but Facebook says more countries would be coming soon
