Instagram for five-year-olds? Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) says ‘no way’

A plan by Facebook to launch an Instagram for kids has children’s advocacy groups around the globe worried. Is it that big a deal?

The nation’s Adelaide-based kids media watchdog has joined a global fight to stop a planned new Instagram for children, arguing there is no place for social media in the lives of toddlers.

Australian Council on Children and the Media has this week signed a petition urging Facebook to dump a reported plan to launch a version of Instagram for children aged under 13 – as it stands, users must be 13 to create a regular Instagram account.

President Elizabeth Handsley said young children simply weren’t equipped to deal with the potentially toxic culture of social media, nor the unrealistic expectations fuelled by it.

“We generally recognise that being on a social media platform is something you have to be at least 13 to be able to manage,” Professor Handsley said.

“We expect this move would open up Instagram to very young children, possibly babies and toddlers … (it would) basically hijack children, their brains and their development in a negative way.”

Prof Handsley said while the concept of a child-targeted platform might have merit, the execution remained problematic. “We just don’t have any confidence that Facebook – or any other general use platform – would be able to set something up to appropriately protect children under 13,” she said.

“So much of the content is based on images and on what people look like, so the focus is on appearance rather than the reality of who people are … there is a lot of sharing of quite superficial things without necessarily much commentary or interaction.

“What this can lead to is an obsession with ‘likes’ on very personal matters … it isn’t a healthy thing for young people to be focusing on – nor so for adults but adults can more easily put it into context.”

Prof Handsley said experts also had concerns around increased screen time and advertising with widespread support for the petition coming from across the globe.

“It shows this is not just something for the US or one or two particular countries but that there is a lot of concern about this stuff from all over the world,” she said.

The petition, launched by Boston-based advocacy group Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood, is addressed to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. “The platform’s relentless focus on appearance, self presentation and branding presents challenges to adolescents’ privacy and wellbeing … younger children are even less developmentally equipped to deal with these challenges,” the group writes.

While Facebook hasn’t yet formally responded to the petition, other apps and social media platforms now available for children aged under 13.