Facebook Messenger Kids Introduces Passphrase Feature, With Parental Oversight

Facebook, which had launched its Messenger app for kids last year, has added some new features in order to keep the application safe to use for the children. The messaging app by Facebook, which is an offshoot of the normal Messenger, is applicable to kids below 13 years of age. The new passphrase feature will allow children to be able to send as well as accept friend requests on their own, just like normal Facebook platform. However, the catch here is that parents will be in control of the interaction between the kids, with their approval needed for the connection.

The way that this new feature works is that each kid will each be provided with a four letter passcode by Facebook. This will be then shown to the other kid who will need to enter it into his or her own application. Once this is done, both of the parents will receive a notification mentioning that their kids want to connect with each other on Messenger, and they have to approve it for the children to get connected. The feature, which is opt-in, is disabled by default. The main aim is to make it easier for kids to communicate with each other, while maintaining some restrictions. The parents do not need to be friends on Facebook in order to know and approve the requests between the children; however, they will still be able to monitor the messages on the platform at their discretion.

Meanwhile, with a view to combat the menace of fake news and misinformation that has plagued Facebook for a long time, Facebook has decided to undertake measures to improve the security and transparency of the pages. The measures include adding a section called “People Who Manage This Page”, which will allow users to see where the Pages are managed from, and will initially appear on Pages having a wide base in the United States. In addition, Facebook will also display when two pages have been merged. The feature, which will also be shortly added on Instagram, requires the Page managers of large U.S. audiences to complete a two-step verification, which will authenticate both the manager and his or her country.