The old media have forced Facebook to – must not sell products, but experiences – has to paralyze one of its star projects: the launch of an Instagram for children under 13 years.
The decision has been announced by surprise by the Executive Director of Instagram – that belongs to Facebook – Adam Mosseri, in an interview on the NBC television network – again, the Media Legacy – and on the company’s blog.
It is not a cancellation, but only one postponement while the company develops new systems that allow users of users to control the content to which they have access and limit the possible pernicious effects of the network mental health network
.
Instagram for children will not have advertising, and will allow parents to control the content to which their children access.
The problem is that Facebook has an impressive history of non-compliance with its own promises.
And that is what underlies this change of strategy.
The decision is summarized in three words: Wall Street Journal.
The Venerable Financial Journal owned by conservative businessman Rupert Murdoch has published a series of devastating Facebook information.
Among them, one that directly affects Instagram: According to the internal studies of the company itself, one in three teenagers who use that social network has image problems and rejection of it own body because of the type of images they see in them
.
The reasons for these problems are evident: on Instagram, which focuses on images, proliferate influencers with Photoshop and all imaginable filters, retouched scenes, and an image of absolutely unreal life that has just generated dramatic consequences in the psychological development of the
persons.
Occasionally, these problems flow into depression, anxiety, bulimia, anorexia and other disorders.
The Wall Street Journal has revealed that Facebook knows it.
But it does not do anything to avoid it.
So the company owned by Mark Zuckerberg has had to stop dry.
It is something remarkable in the 21st century: a company – Dow Jones, which is the owner of the Wall Street Journal – has managed to stop the plans of another, Facebook, which is worth 70 times more (14.8 billion dollars against 993,000 million
).
Research journalism has been imposed on the experience of platforms.
Instagram director, Mosseri, predictably, has insisted that it is not a paralysis, but only “a pause” to “work with parents, experts and regulators and show them the value and need for this product.”
The head of Instagram states categorically that, although some consider the decision “is an account of Instagram for children was a bad idea, that is not the case.”
