Image: Protocol
Facebook is building ‘Instagram for kids.’ Everybody else hates the idea.

Good morning! This Tuesday, why everyone hates the idea of "an Instagram for kids," why Peely the Banana became a key character in Epic v. Apple, Roblox had a huge quarter, and why it might be time to turn off your Zoom camera.
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Facebook is developing a version of Instagram made especially for kids under 13. Pretty much everybody who doesn't work for Facebook hates the idea.
The latest big names to voice their concern were 44 state attorneys general, who sent a letter to Mark Zuckerberg on Monday, Protocol's Issie Lapowsky reported, in order to "urge Facebook to abandon these plans." Broadly speaking, they have two reasons:
These are extraordinarily popular opinions, by the way. And the backlash to the Instagram for kids idea was swift and has been consistent since BuzzFeed reported the existence of the project in March.
But Facebook thinks it can solve these problems with its new product. The fact of the matter is, lots of kids already are on services like Facebook and Instagram. "As every parent knows, kids are online all the time, whether adults want it or not," the company said. "We want to improve this situation by delivering experiences that give parents visibility and control over what their kids are doing."
Facebook has a lot of people to please here. There are lawmakers, nonprofits, agencies and competitors of all kinds who will be scrutinizing this carefully; as a tech exec said to me recently, online child safety is the only thing everyone agrees on. All these letters and public statements just add to the list of stakeholders.
Ultimately, convincing parents to let their kids on Instagram Kids (or whatever it's called) might be tough for Facebook. But Instagram's party line on this is that convincing kids to use it will be much harder. The app has to be more compelling than regular Instagram, or kids will just keep lying about their age to get on the app. Kids these days!
I haven't researched this extensively, but I'm reasonably confident that the phrase "naked banana" made its federal court debut on Monday.
Apple has been questioning Epic about the content in the Epic Games Store, and — in a sign of exactly how bonkers this whole thing has become — made the case that Fortnite character Peely (a banana that sometimes wears clothes but is often au naturel) was an inappropriate character.
There is some substance behind all this silliness. Apple has been harping on Itch.io, an indie games store that hosts some games Apple finds objectionable. Epic argues that that's Itch's problem, because all Epic hosts is the store. Apple, though, sees this as a perfect example of what can happen when you let other stores operate inside your store.
But still, I can't imagine anything more fun than the fate of the App Store being decided based on Peely the Banana.
Transportation's tech revolution isn't just about cars, Pete Buttigieg said:
DarkSide, the hacking group that shut down the Colonial Pipeline, apologized for hitting such a high-profile target:
But it's not just the pipeline: Hackers are going wild all over the internet, Cloudflare's Matthew Prince said:
Starboard nominated four people to Box's board of directors, and is planning to push for big changes inside the company:
YouTube's researchers found the most common opening words to a video, and here they are:
As companies rapidly adopt cloud native computing, it's no surprise to find that 60% have increased security concerns. In fact, a recent Snyk survey reveals that 56% of organizations suffer from misconfigurations and known vulnerabilities incidents. Read the full 2021 State of Cloud Native Application Security report for more insights.
Antonio García Martínez joined Apple's ad platform team. He was a key part of Facebook's early efforts in advertising, and the author of "Chaos Monkeys."
Cathie Wood is joining the board at Amun Holdings, to help grow 21Shares in the crypto space.
Lauren Wirtzer-Seawood is SoundCloud's new chief content and marketing officer. She joins from UnitedMasters, but was previously Instagram's head of music partnerships.
Harley-Davidson is spinning out LiveWire, its electric motorcycle division, into its own company. You could say it hopes to be the … Harley-Davidson of the industry.
Are camera-off Fridays the new casual Fridays? HSBC, Citigroup and others are starting to enforce Zoom-free Fridays, trying to allow for deeper work and some decompression after a week of staring at each others' faces on screens.
It's a good idea, and a spin on the no-meetings days that some tech companies have had for years. But I'd go one step further: normalize cameras-off meetings! By default, it seems, most companies have gravitated to having cameras on unless otherwise specified, but I think it's time for a reversal. Unless "cameras on" is specified in your meeting invite, everyone who wants to can be audio-only. Just make sure you upload an awesome avatar so your team doesn't just have to stare at a blank square.
As companies rapidly adopt cloud native computing, it's no surprise to find that 60% have increased security concerns. In fact, a recent Snyk survey reveals that 56% of organizations suffer from misconfigurations and known vulnerabilities incidents. Read the full 2021 State of Cloud Native Application Security report for more insights.
Today's Source Code was written by David Pierce, with help from Anna Kramer and Shakeel Hashim. Thoughts, questions, tips? Send them to david@protocol.com, or our tips line, tips@protocol.com. Enjoy your day; see you tomorrow.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled Amun Holdings. This story was updated on May 11, 2021.
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