Child development advocates are calling on Facebook to discontinue its new Messenger Kids app, which is targeted at 6 to 12 year olds. On Tuesday, more than a dozen organizations and about 100 health experts sent a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg saying the new chat app will likely damage a child’s healthy development. The effort is led by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC), an advocacy organization working to combat exploitative marketing to children. Other groups who signed the letter include the ACLU of Massachusetts, Media Education Foundation, Defending the Early Years and Parent Coalition for Student Privacy. In addition, the organizations said the demographic doesn’t have a fully developed understanding of privacy, such as what content is appropriate to share with friends or who has access to their conversations, photos and videos.

Reading Vocabulary

advocate – a person who publicly supports or recommends a particular cause or policy