London
CNN
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Social media large Meta has lowered the minimal age required to make use of WhatsApp in Europe to 13 from 16, sparking criticism from kids’s rights advocates.
The brand new age restriction came into force within the European Union Thursday. The brand new minimal age of 13 was additionally introduced for customers in the UK in February.
The messaging service — which Meta (META) acquired a decade in the past — says on its website that the adjustments guarantee “a constant minimal age requirement for WhatsApp globally.”
Nevertheless, the decrease age restrict has ignited criticism from kids’s rights advocates within the UK who argue that it additional exposes younger folks to a slew of well-documented on-line harms.
In a press release Thursday, UK-based marketing campaign group Smartphone Free Childhood known as on WhatsApp to reverse the brand new coverage. “WhatsApp are placing shareholder earnings first and youngsters’s security second,” stated Daisy Greenwell, the group’s co-founder.
Lowering the age restrict is “fully tone-deaf,” she stated, “and ignores the more and more loud alarm bells being rung by scientists, docs, lecturers, little one security specialists, dad and mom and psychological well being specialists alike” over the harms of social media use for youngsters.
Vicky Ford, a UK lawmaker from the ruling Conservative Occasion and member of a key authorities committee on training, known as the choice to decrease the minimal age with out talking to folks first “irresponsible,” PA Media reported.
A WhatsApp spokesperson advised CNN Friday: “We give all customers choices to regulate who can add them to teams and, the primary time you obtain a message from an unknown quantity, we provide the choice to dam and report the account.”
The European Fee, the EU’s govt physique, has not responded to a request for remark.
Meta has been roundly criticized previously for its push to decrease age restrictions throughout platforms in america.
Final yr, the corporate stated it was planning to scale back the minimal age for its digital actuality app from 13 to 10 years outdated, regardless of pressure from US lawmakers to not market such companies to youthful customers.
CNN additionally reported final yr that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg had personally and repeatedly thwarted initiatives meant to enhance the well-being of teenagers on Fb and Instagram, the corporate’s different platforms.
At occasions, Zuckerberg immediately overruled a few of his most senior executives, who had been pushing for higher protections for adolescents, in line with inner communications made public as a part of an ongoing lawsuit in opposition to the corporate.
However, in a press launch Thursday — unrelated to the change in WhatsApp’s age coverage in Europe — Meta said it was testing features to guard younger folks from the hazards of “sextortion” and “intimate picture abuse.” It hopes the brand new options will “make it harder for potential scammers and criminals to seek out and work together with teenagers.”
Sextortion predators sometimes trick younger victims into believing they’re speaking to folks their very own age. They persuade them to ship express pictures and movies, and later threaten to publicize these photographs until a cost is shipped.