Facebook is coming for kids following the launch of a messaging app for children to chat with their parents and with friends approved by their parents.
The free app which comes with several controls for parents is aimed at kids under 13, who cannot have their own accounts under Facebook's rules.
The service it's an extension of a parent's account were children cannot add their own friends or delete messages as only parents can do that.
According to Kristelle Lavallee, a children's psychology expert, while children do use messaging and social media apps designed for teenagers and adults, those services aren't built for them.
Lavallee, who is content strategist at the Center on Media and Child Health at Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard University, called Messenger Kids a "useful tool" that "makes parents the gatekeepers."
However Lavallee said that while Facebook made the app with the best of intentions, it is not yet known how people around the world will actually use it.
As with other tools Facebook has released in the past, intentions and real-world use do not always match up. For example Facebook's live video streaming feature, has been used for plenty of innocuous and useful things, but also to stream crimes and suicides.
Federal law prohibits internet companies from gathering personal information on kids under 13 without their parents' permission and imposes restrictions on advertising to them.
This is why Facebook and many other social media companies prohibit younger kids from joining. Even so, millions of kids under 13 are already on Facebook, with or without their parents' approval.
Facebook is trying to deal with the situation pragmatically by steering young Facebook users to a service designed for them.
The social media giant said it won't automatically move users to the regular Messenger or Facebook when they get old enough, though the company might give them the option to move contacts to Messenger down the line.
