| Hey all, it's Kurt. Facebook is once again in the middle of a clash about user privacy and safety, and this time it's related to a product that doesn't even exist yet. On Monday, 44 state attorneys general sent a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg urging him to abandon plans for Instagram Youth, a version of the popular photo-sharing app for pre-teens. The State AGs claim it would be "harmful for myriad reasons," including the potential to harm kids' possible mental health. Facebook disagrees. As my colleague Naomi Nix and I wrote for Bloomberg Businessweek last week, the company is dead-set on building the app, which it says will offer parents more control over their children's social media habits. Critics of Instagram Youth are quick to point out the possible psychological impact of social media—the addiction to a feed, the fear of missing out, the pressure to post photos or videos in hopes people literally "like" them. It's a lot, even for adults. The grind of searching for approval online isn't something we need to be putting on 10-year-olds as well. But Facebook's argument is this: Those 10-year-olds are already using social media. Or at least a lot of them are. A study published Wednesday night in Platformer found 45% of 9- to 12-year-olds use Facebook and 40% use Instagram. Kids frequently lie about their age to get on Instagram and Snapchat and TikTok. If that's the case, why not build an app with parental controls to try to make the experience safer? A few weeks ago I spoke to Stacey Steinberg, a lawyer and children's privacy expert at the University of Florida. She was admittedly worried about a data privacy breach when it comes to a children's social media app, and echoed concerns about the mental health aspects. But she liked the idea of a limited social media environment for kids before they get to the "adult" versions of these apps. "Unlike so many other aspects of family life, there [are] no training wheels when it comes to social media," she said. It's a good point. How can we expect a 13-year-old to suddenly know how to use social media if they've never been trained to do so? And isn't the alternative of unfettered and secret social media use for a 9-year-old even worse? The Platformer study, from a nonprofit called Thorn, found that a lot of underage social media users have online sexual interactions with adults and unsuccessfully try to use the service's safety tools to try and block or report those people. The report is a clear sign that the current model simply isn't working for young kids. A social network with parental controls would hopefully prevent many of those interactions by giving parents access to their kids' private messages and followers. So here's where I've landed on this contentious debate: I like the idea of Instagram Youth because it's a version of social media with total parental control. However, I'm not sure Facebook is the company that should be building it. There are a lot of people who think Facebook is an evil company set out to destroy the fabric of America. I am not one of those people. But I do believe that products that come from Facebook these days are tainted. Even though it built a similar kids' product around messaging more than three years ago that now has millions of users, the company has failed repeatedly to protect its users' privacy. Facebook has lost the public's trust. That reputation issue is having an immediate impact. Just the idea of Facebook building a version of Instagram for children has been immediately excoriated by elected officials and privacy advocates. Helping pre-teens understand the intricacies of the online world is important. But putting Facebook in charge of that discussion might not get us very far. The messenger is often as important as the message, and in this case, I'm not sure the world is ready to listen to Facebook. —Kurt Wagner | 
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