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Facebook Messenger Kids Allowed Users to Chat with Unapproved Users

By Laura Tucker
News Facebook Messenger Kids Featured

In many ways being a parent is more difficult. We now have to find a way to protect our children not just when they’re apart from us but also when they’re on the Internet. Stranger danger is around our children at all times of the day.

Finding safe apps for our children to use on the computer or their devices can be difficult. Finding out what we thought was a safe app is anything but is even worse. Facebook’s Messenger Kids app should be something we can trust.

However, just like the adult versions of the Facebook apps, it turns out Messenger Kids can’t always be trusted, as it unknowingly allows children to chat with users who haven’t been approved by parents.

Dangers of Facebook’s Messenger Kids

Facebook’s Messenger Kids app was built to give kids a safe place to chat with the knowledge that they shouldn’t be chatting with people who have not been approved. We all know there are dangerous people lurking all over the Internet.

However, a design flaw in the Messenger Kids app allows users to leave the protection of the group chat system and enter into group chats with people who have not been approved by their parents.

Facebook has been working for the past week on closing those group chats and alerting users of the design flaw, but it hasn’t made any public statements regarding the issue.

The alert sent to parents reads as follows: “We found a technical error that allowed [Child’s name]’s friend [Friend’s name] to create a group chat with {Child’s name] and one or more of [Friend’s name]’s parent-approved friends.

News Facebook Messenger Kids Girls

“We want you to know that we’ve turned off this group chat and are making sure that group chats like this won’t be allowed in the future. If you have questions about Messenger Kids and online safety, please visit our Help Center and Messenger Kids parents controls. We’d also appreciate your feedback.

Facebook did confirm to The Verge that the message was authentic. They also admitted it had been sent out to thousands of parents recently.

“We recently notified some parents of Messenger Kids account users about a technical error that we detected affecting a small number of group chats,” said a Facebook representative.

“We turned off the afected chats and provided parents with additional resources on Messenger Kids and online safety.”

It’s great that Faceook is being proactive about it at this point, but it’s a little too late. They have already put all these children in jeopardy with the design flaw. It’s an egregious error.

Putting Trust in Facebook

Facebook has made it increasingly hard to trust them in the past two or three years. But this is worse. Not only have they put our data at risk, they have put our children’s lives at risk. It’s one thing to give them a second chance with our content, but giving them a second chance with our children is a different thing altogether.

Did you allow your children to use Facebook’s Messenger Kids? If so, will you be giving the app a second chance? Tell us what you think in the comments section below.

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Laura Tucker Avatar
Laura Tucker
Laura has spent more than 20 years writing news, reviews, and op-eds, with the majority of those years as an editor as well. She has exclusively used Apple products for the past 35 years. In addition to writing and editing at MTE, she also runs the site’s sponsored review program.

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