A group of attorneys general is taking the lead against the new Instagram for kids concept.
As of Monday, 44 attorneys general from around the country had urged Facebook to drop the plan, which would develop a version of the photo-sharing app exclusively for children aged 13 and under.
They said it is not only a safety risk, but it may also have serious mental health implications.
"Use of social media can be detrimental to the health and well-being of children, who are not equipped to navigate the challenges of having a social media account," the AGs write, urging Zuckerberg to please "abandon" his recently reported plan to launch an Instagram for the under-13 set.
Instagram Jr. rumors first surfaced in March, when Buzzfeed received an internal memo touting an upcoming version of the app aimed exclusively at younger users. According to Buzzfeed, the memo came only two days after Instagram published a post detailing its efforts to make the current app safer for its youngest users, recognizing the shortcomings of the existing product.
When the news of Instagram for kids emerged, Adam Mosseri, the company's CEO, told Buzzfeed that one vision for the venture was to let "parents have transparency or control."
A Facebook representative told CNN that child users would not be bombarded with advertisements like their adult counterparts and that their parents would have to be involved. However, several critics have found that these promises are insufficient.
A coalition of 35 children's and consumer groups from around the world, as well as numerous members of Congress, and now all of these AGs, have urged Zuckerberg to abandon the idea.
The AGs noted concerns that children "may not fully appreciate what content is appropriate for them to share with others, the permanency of content they post on an online platform, and who has access to what they share online," citing a slew of studies indicating social media use has a negative impact on young users' mental health.
They also point out that Facebook has done a poor job of implementing the safety and privacy safeguards that it already has in place, adding "it appears that Facebook is not responding to a need, but instead creating one."
