Government officials typically do not intervene in the product development pipelines of tech companies. That changed this week, when attorneys general from 41 states (and Guam! and the Northern Mariana Islands! and Washington D.C.!) asked Facebook to halt the upcoming release of its Instagram for kids app, known internally as Instagram Youth.
In a letter, most of the nations’ top legal officers said that “research increasingly demonstrates that social media can be harmful to the physical, emotional and mental well-being of children.” They refuted Congressional testimony from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in which he said that social media is not harmful to children.
Why, exactly, are state attorneys general wading into this? Isn’t this more the terrain of, say, the American Pediatric Association? Lawyers are not known for brevity, and their letter is no exception. Page three (small font, single spaced) provides insight:
“[kids] are also simply too young to navigate the…
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Source : fastcompany.com
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