Facebook working on Instagram for kids under 13

Executives at Instagram are planning to build a version of the popular photo-sharing app that can be used by children under the age of 13, according to an internal company post obtained by BuzzFeed News.

"I'm excited to announce that going forward, we have identified youth work as a priority for Instagram and have added it to our H1 priority list," Vishal Shah, Instagram's vice president of product, wrote on an employee message board on Thursday. "We will be building a new youth pillar within the Community Product Group to focus on two things: (a) accelerating our integrity and privacy work to ensure the safest possible experience for teens and (b) building a version of Instagram that allows people under the age of 13 to safely use Instagram for the first time."

This revelation comes a few days after Instagram announced new features to protect teens on its platform. The new features included restricting direct messages between teens and adults they don't follow, prompting teens to be more cautious about interactions in direct messages, encouraging teens to make their accounts private and making it harder for adults to find and follow teens.

Children under 13 officially can't use the app under COPPA rules, but that hasn't stopped some from using fake birthdays to dupe the platform's age check procedure. Instagram knows that young users can lie about their dates of birth, which is why it's developing artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies to help protect minors.

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