Petitions calling on Facebook to abandon its plan to create an Instagram-like platform designed for children have garnered widespread support as the company faces backlash over the proposal.
More than 180,000 people signed three declarations penned by a coalition of advocacy and grassroots organizations, including Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, SumOfUs and the Juggernaut Project.
In March, Buzzfeed obtained internal documents showing that Facebook, Instagram’s parent company, wants to allow kids to “safely use” its popular photo- and video-focused social media platform.
The groups have collectively called on Facebook to shelve its version of Instagram for kids under 13, arguing that excessive use of social media is harmful to adolescents. The campaign says that many of the negative effects of social media, including issues related to self-image, would have devastating consequences for young people. The groups have noted that children under 13 are banned from having an Instagram account not run by a parent or guardian.
Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood said in a press release on Tuesday that the coalition of groups will submit the petitions, which were launched in early April, to Facebook ahead of the company’s annual shareholder’s meeting tomorrow.
Emma Ruby-Sachs, the executive director of SumOfUs, a non-profit that aims to hold corporations accountable on social and environmental issues, said Facebook’s plan for an ‘Instagram for kids’ is like “Big Tobacco selling ‘child-friendly’ cigarettes.” The initiative is “a cynical ploy to hook in users as early as possible that serves nobody’s interests except [Facebook CEO] Mark Zuckerberg’s,” she argued.
Josh Golin, the executive director of Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, employed similarly incendiary language when discussing Facebook’s intentions. Concerned parents and activists won’t allow young children to be used as “pawns” in Instagram’s “war with TikTok for market share,” he vowed.
