--- title: Facebook Is Building 'Instagram Kids' for Children Under 13 description: Facebook is building a version of Instagram for children under 13 in an effort to get its products into the hands of the next generation. canonical: https://time.com/5948076/facebook-instagram-kids/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2021-03-19T04:45:40.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T08:52:24.368Z article:section: Business og:title: Facebook Is Building 'Instagram Kids' for Children Under 13 og:description: It's an effort to get Facebook's popular products into the hands of the next generation of internet users. og:url: https://time.com/5948076/facebook-instagram-kids/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Facebook Is Building 'Instagram Kids' for Children Under 13 twitter:description: It's an effort to get Facebook's popular products into the hands of the next generation of internet users. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Facebook Is Building 'Instagram Kids' for Children Under 13 by [Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg](/author/bloomberg/) ## Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg Mar 19, 2021 4:45 AM CUT by [Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg](/author/bloomberg/) ## Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg Mar 19, 2021 4:45 AM CUT Facebook is building a version of the photo-sharing tool Instagram specifically for children under the age of 13, an effort to get its popular products into the hands of the next generation of internet users. The new app was announced internally Thursday, but is not yet launched. Instagram currently requires that users must be at least 13 years old. BuzzFeed News [previously reported](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/facebook-instagram-for-children-under-13 "undefined") on Instagram Kids. Instagram, bought by Facebook almost a decade ago for $1 billion, has become one of its most popular products at a time when its main social networking property has failed to resonate with some younger users. “Increasingly kids are asking their parents if they can join apps that help them keep up with their friends,” Joe Osborne, a Facebook spokesman, said in a statement. “Right now there aren’t many options for parents, so we’re working on building additional products — like we did with Messenger Kids — that are suitable for kids, managed by parents. We’re exploring bringing a parent-controlled experience to Instagram to help kids keep up with their friends, discover new hobbies and interests, and more.” [Messenger Kids](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-04/facebook-unveils-messaging-app-for-kids-to-pursue-younger-users "undefined") is a version of Facebook’s messaging app for pre-teens. That app includes a number of parental controls, but [a flaw ](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-29/facebook-says-it-spoke-to-ftc-about-kids-chat-app-that-had-flaw "undefined")previously allowed some kids to chat with people their parents had not approved. The incident sparked concern from regulators that it didn’t adequately protect children. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5948076/facebook-instagram-kids/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5948076/facebook-instagram-kids/"},"headline":"Facebook Is Building 'Instagram Kids' for Children Under 13","datePublished":"2021-03-19T04:45:40.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:52:24.368Z","description":"It's an effort to get Facebook's popular products into the hands of the next generation of internet users","url":"https://time.com/5948076/facebook-instagram-kids/","keywords":["Tech","Social Media","wire","overnight"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg"}],"articleSection":"Business","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/business/","name":"Business"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-tech/","name":"Tech"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5948076/facebook-instagram-kids/","name":"Facebook Is Building 'Instagram Kids' for Children Under 13"}}]}] ```