Through this tool, teachers could create a student group for their class, which could come in particularly handy amid the current lockdowns.Īnd lastly, Facebook is also adding a new option which will enable parents to display their child's name and profile photo to 'friends of their child’s contacts and their parents, kids of the parent’s Facebook friends, and kids of people parents invite to download the Messenger Kids app'.Messenger Kids is like the regular Facebook Messenger app in that it allows both text and video chat. It does seem like a potential risk in the broader supervision and security of the app, but the impetus makes sense. These approved adults can only connect kids whose parents have also granted this adult the same approval.' 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. 'Kids often build community through their classes at school, participating in a team sport or other extracurricular activities. That said, digital literacy is also an increasingly important element of kids' lives, and it does make sense that Messenger Kids provides some educational value in this respect, in addition to being a connective tool for youngsters.Īlong with the expanded rollout, Facebook is also adding some new connection tools in the app.įirst, Facebook is launching a new 'Supervised Friending' option that will enable parents to let their kids accept, reject, add or remove their own contacts in the app, with parents maintaining the ability to override any new contact approvals from the Parent Dashboard in the app.

There was no specific evidence that this issue was exploited, as such, and Facebook has since resolved the problem, but it served as a reminder of the potential risks associated with any social app, even one with user security front of mind, like Messenger Kids.

As reported by The Verge, a technical flaw enabled unauthorized users to connect with kids in the app. Messenger Kids has, overall, maintained a fairly good record on this front since being launched in December 2017, though an issue with its group chats feature was identified last July.

Messenger kids