Instagram launched a major campaign to champion parent control over app downloads

If you subscribe to the Wall Street Journal in print, you may have been surprised to open the A section yesterday to a full-page ad by Instagram. In giant text it reads: “More than 75% of parents agree: Teens under 16 shouldn’t be able to download apps from app stores without permission. Instagram wants to work with Congress to pass federal legislation to get it done.”

This campaign, which also features TV commercials, comes as Instagram parent Meta litigates multiple lawsuits that allege the social media giant has harmed children with its technologies. The first of these suits is a class action suit brought against Meta and its peers ByteDance (TikTok), Snap, and Alphabet (YouTube), in which school districts across the country allege that the companies caused physical and emotional harm to children. The second suit has been filed by the attorneys general of dozens of states, alleging that Meta has addicted children to its technologies in pursuit of enormous profits. 

Meta did not respond to Fortune’s questions about the campaign and its relation to the suits by the time of publication. The company’s global head of safety did, however, write a Nov. 15 blog post that advocates for federal mandates on children’s downloads from app stores. “US states are passing a patchwork of different laws, many of which require teens (of varying ages) to get their parent’s approval to use certain apps, and for everyone to verify their age to access them,” she says. “Teens move interchangeably between many websites and apps, and social media laws that hold different platforms to different standards in different states will mean teens are inconsistently protected.”

For more background, throughout the 233-page complaint, the attorneys general say that Meta was aware of Instagram accounts belonging to kids under 13 and did not delete or disable those accounts after surveying the underage users. “Meta knows that its age-gating is ineffective and that more than half of its teen users lied about their age,” says the complaint. It cites an internal chat from Instagram chief Adam Mosseri saying, “We’d like it if they aged up from an age appropriate version to the full [version] of Instagram.”

As part of the new marketing campaign, Meta appears to be pushing the responsibility of controlling underage app downloads onto the app store owners Apple and Google. This campaign was launched in conjunction with survey firm Morning Consult, which Meta hired to run a study on how parents feel about child app downloads. The companies found that parents overwhelmingly (79%) would like to approve children’s app downloads and that they’d like to do so “in one place (such as an app store)” rather than on an app-by-app basis. 

It’s worth noting that Apple and Google already have parental control features available for app downloads, just not in the manner that Meta suggests. And those controls still require an app-by-app approval system.

The conversation around age-gating is a difficult one. The attorneys general suggest that Meta ask kids to upload photos of their student IDs for age verification. And a few months ago, Australia and the U.K. walked back digital age-verification measures, saying they introduced a new suite of problems, including privacy and data security issues. 

We’ll be watching for how Apple and Google respond, perhaps with pressures from the unlikely duo of Meta and parents.

Programming note: Data Sheet will be back after the holidays, returning to your inbox Jan. 2, 2024.

Alexandra Sternlicht

Want to send thoughts or suggestions to Data Sheet? Drop a line here.

NEWSWORTHY

Ex-Meta execs warned that encrypted messages would lead to untrackable child sex abuse. Former Facebook community integrity engineering director David Erb warned about encrypting messages on the platform, noting that his team found “millions of pedophiles targeting tens of millions of children” via the “People You May Know” feature. Erb was joined in his concern by Vaishnavi J, Meta’s former head of youth policy, who was also interviewed by the Wall Street Journal. “Meta will consistently say this is an industrywide issue. But no other company is melding recommendations with encrypted messaging,” she told the WSJ. “That’s a uniquely Meta recipe for disaster.”

Nvidia hacker sentenced to secure hospital for life. The 18-year-old who hacked Nvidia, British Telecom/Everything Everywhere, Uber, and Rockstar Games will spend the rest of his life in a secure hospital unless doctors deem him no longer a danger. Arion Kurtaj, who is autistic, was on bail and in police protection at a Travelodge hotel—punishment for cyberattacks on chip giant Nvidia, among other companies—hacked into Rockstar Games, stealing 90 clips of the unreleased Grand Theft Auto 6 using just an Amazon Firestick, hotel TV, and a mobile phone. The Lapsus$ gang hacker then entered the company’s internal Slack, saying: “If Rockstar does not contact me on Telegram within 24 hours I will start releasing the source code.” On Thursday, a British court heard about this incident, among others, and delivered the lifetime sentence. 

Substack cofounder says the company will not deplatform, demonetize Nazi content. After over 200 Substack authors took to the platform to ask why it was “platforming and monetizing” Nazis, Substack cofounder Hamish McKenzie wrote back: “We don’t like Nazis either—we wish no-one held those views. But some people do hold those and other extreme views. Given that, we don’t think that censorship (including through demonetizing publications) makes the problem go away—in fact, it makes it worse.” Per The Verge, some Substackers questioned why the platform censored groups like sex workers, but not Nazis, and did not get an answer. It’s an important example of the ever-tense conversation around free speech on the internet.

ON OUR FEED

"Sad to see @washingtonpost end it’s Cyber 202 newsletter amid other budget cuts. It was such an awesome way to start the day - often showcasing great journalism on stories that were being ignored by other mainstream news outlets.”

—Reuters reporter Chris Bing on X

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Robinhood’s crypto revenue is the lowest it’s been in 3 years, but it still stans crypto—and Dogecoin, by Ben Weiss

Infant formula startup Bobbie axed all recurring meetings for 2024, by Paige McGlauflin and Joseph Adams

Venture capitalist Bradley Tusk outlines what startups should expect from government agencies and regulators over the next year, by Jessica Mathews and Bradley Tusk

SEC ‘deeply regrets’ errors in crypto case, asks judge to waive sanctions after misleading statements, by Leo Schwartz

Meta is one step closer to following in Airbnb’s footsteps as $954 million Italian tax case heads to EU judgment, by Ryan Hogg

BEFORE YOU GO

Apple may be bullying your green text friends into remaining green text friends. 

My dad is the only close contact who sends me green texts. Until the New York Times published a story today about Beeper Mini, an app that enables green texters—Android users—to send blue texts—iMessages—to Apple users, I had woefully accepted that I could not message my dad nor receive his barrage of ellipses, puns, and memes from my computer. It’s a pain because I store my iPhone in the other room while I work to mitigate digital distractions. The consequence: I’m a really bad texter for my father, and meet his jokes with crickets. Beeper Mini could’ve been a solution for us. 

But less than a week after Beeper Mini blessed Android users with the power of emoji reactions, Apple altered iMessage’s source code to prevent Beeper Mini from bestowing blue text power on Androiders. Apple says Beeper Mini created a security and privacy risk. This Apple-Beeper scuttle has continued for a month, reports TechCrunch. Now Beeper is waving a white flag, opening their code to anyone on GitHub. 

“Each time that Beeper Mini goes ‘down’ or is made to be unreliable due to interference by Apple, Beeper’s credibility takes a hit,” the company wrote on its blog. “As much as we want to fight for what we believe is a fantastic product that really should exist, the truth is that we can’t win a cat-and-mouse game with the largest company on earth.”

I’m not the only one interested in Beeper Mini; the Department of Justice’s antitrust lawyers met with the company, a source told the Times. This meeting, which happened on Dec. 12, occurs in the thick of the DOJ’s four-year investigation into alleged anticompetitive practices by Apple. 

To that I respond: *Emphasis emoji.*