Facebook launches Messenger Kids in 70 countries

MANILA, Philippines – Facebook launched its kid-friendly version of its popular messaging app, Messenger, in 70 new countries, on Wednesday, April 22. 

Messenger Kids was first launched in the US in December 2017. 

The app has several features that aim to make it safer for children to connect online. “Supervised Friending” lets parents choose to allow their children to accept, reject, add or remove contacts.

Through a dashboard, the parents have the ability to override the moves made by their children. Parents are notified on their own Messenger app when their kid performs an action to connect to other people. 

While the app also wants to encourage children to form a community with their peers, Messenger Kids will also have a feature that allows parents to oversee and approve their kid joining a group within the app. Parents will also be notified when new contacts are added for the child, and can manage these connections easily through a dashboard. 

Controlling who can see their kid’s name and profile photo is also designed to be much easier in the Kids app compared to the standard Messenger app. The list of countries (which excludes the Philippines) where the new app is available can be found here. – Rappler.com