Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, is afraid of losing young users in its user base. Therefore, it aims to spend most of its marketing budget on reaching young people and maintaining their interest. “If we lose the support of young people in the US, we lose our feed line,” said an internal memo circulated on Instagram last October, the Times reported.
The Times noted that as of 2018, nearly all of Instagram’s annual marketing budget worldwide is devoted to teen messaging, with a budget of $390 million this year. Marketers say it’s unusual to lean on a particular age group to this extent. It is stated that the marketing efforts also include messaging aimed at parents and young adults. It faces strong competitors like Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat, favored by younger users.
Facebook and Instagram came under fire after a former Facebook product engineer, Frances Haugen, leaked documents last month that Facebook researchers found that Instagram was harmful to a “significant percentage” of young users, particularly teenage girls. The report noted that depression, anxiety, and body image issues were areas of concern. Haugen also testified before Congress this month, claiming that Facebook’s products are “harming children, fueling division and undermining democracy.”
Last month, Instagram stopped development of Instagram Kids, a special service for kids under 13 that isn’t currently allowed on the current Instagram site. Earlier, the company said that the service will not be designed like the adult version of the application, it will be ad-free and can be directly supervised by parents. Regardless of such assurances, news about the Instagram Kids project has alarmed critics, who are concerned about the mental health and privacy of young users. The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act 1998 restricts the collection or storage of personal data about anyone under the age of 13.
Instagram head Adam Mosseri said he still thinks creating Instagram Kids is “the right thing to do”, arguing that kids are already online and misrepresenting their age to access the service.
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