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Flawed Facebook app let children chat with strangers
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IANS | 23 Jul, 2019
Facebook has admitted a design
flaw in its Messenger Kids Service that exposed thousands of children on
group chats with unauthorised users.
According to a report in
The Verge on Tuesday, the design flaw "allowed users to sidestep that
protection through the group chat system, thereby letting children to
enter group chats with unapproved strangers".
The social
networking platform introduced Messenger Kids in 2017 and is aimed at
kids under 13 years of age. Despite call for withdrawal by experts,
Facebook said a "technical error" was behind the problem in group chat.
Facebook sent notification to parents, saying it has disabled the group
chats in cases where the flaw was detected.
"We recently notified
some parents of Messenger Kids account users about a technical error
that we detected affecting a small number of group chats," a Facebook
spokesperson was quoted as saying.
"We turned off the affected
chats and provided parents with additional resources on Messenger Kids
and online safety," the company added.
Messenger Kids is a video
chat and messaging app designed for kids to communicate with family and
close friends that parents or caregivers approve.
Parents set up and manage their child's Messenger Kids account through their own Facebook account.
It is unclear how long the bug was present in the app's group chat feature.
Last
year, more than 100 child health experts wrote an open letter to
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, urging him to discontinue the Messenger
Kids app.
"At a time when there is mounting concern about how
social media use affects the well being of adolescents, it is
particularly irresponsible to encourage children as young as
pre-schoolers to start using a Facebook product," the authors wrote.
Facing
the flak from lawmakers and experts, Facebook in February this year
decided not to build a new app called "LOL" to let children share and
post humorous meme content. Instead, the social media giant said it
would focus more on its Messenger Kids service.
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