States Ask Instagram and Facebook to Use Permission Slips Before Reaching Children

The request entered the trial as a thick packet titled Proposed Changes to Instagram and Facebook, with each platform divided into age groups. Instagram’s Explore tab was listed as old enough to wander but not old enough to know where it was going, while Facebook Memories was assigned a guardian because it keeps producing photographs from 2009.

Among the proposed changes, every feature that can reach a child would have to demonstrate basic adult behavior before appearing in the same room with one. Recommendations would need permission slips. Direct messages would be required to knock. The Like button would be permitted to approach only after identifying its parent or legal guardian.

The exhibit room gets an admission policy

The court’s child-privacy docket began enforcing the filing before the first argument was complete. Clerks issued visitor badges to cardboard stand-ins for the features and placed a waist-high gate around the recommendation engine. Facebook Memories was sent to a quiet corner after bringing up middle school without being asked.

The opening session was delayed when no adult could be found to supervise the recommendation engine. A court aide eventually seated it beside Facebook Memories, which had signed itself out with a crayon and left the building carrying everyone’s old birthday photos.