Instagram's good intentions

Hi everyone, it’s Ilena Peng in New York. You would think that adding parental controls to a product would make it safer; that’s not necessa [View in browser]( [Bloomberg]( Hi everyone, it’s Ilena Peng in New York. You would think that adding parental controls to a product would make it safer; that’s not necessarily true. But first… Today’s top tech news: - Apple and Meta gave user data to [hackers who posed as police]( - The grocery delivery unit of Russia’s Yandex unit is considering [selling off or closing]( some operations in Europe - Crypto-bridge hacks hit [more than $1 billion]( in a little more than a year The best-laid plans The technology industry is great at devising well-meaning products that end up getting abused. Apple Inc.’s AirTags, which help people keep track of their personal items like keys, have been used by stalkers to track people. Amazon.com Inc.’s Ring doorbells, intended to assist in home security, have been tools in police overreach. Instagram’s parental controls may be next. In March, after years of concern over Instagram’s impact on young people, owner Meta Platforms Inc. added parental controls. Parents can view how much time their child spends on Instagram, who they follow, who follows them and when they report an account to content moderators. A future release will let parents set limits on when teens can’t use Instagram, like during school hours or before bedtime. There’s one major loophole: Instagram does little to verify that the “parent” is actually a parent. The tool only requires that a teen send a request to a supervising account, which must be someone who lists their age on Instagram as over 18. Age verification on the app largely relies on self-reported birthdays, and could potentially allow people of other ages, who aren’t necessarily parents or guardians, to access supervision tools. Teens might not have the autonomy to refuse parents or other adults access to their accounts, putting them at risk, said Darcey Merritt, an associate professor at New York University’s Silver School of Social Work. “Misuse is absolutely possible and might create a host of deleterious outcomes across circumstances,” Merritt said in an email. “This is not to say as intended it’s a bad thing, but there will be abuses of coercive oversight.” Beyond the verification problem, Meta is making “a lot of assumptions,” like that those who access the tools are digitally literate parents or guardians who are acting in their teen’s best interests, said Katie Paul, the director of the Tech Transparency Project. Usually, a spate of abuse forces a company to tweak its product. Apple has added new safeguards to its AirTags, like making them louder so people know if one has been dropped in their bag without their knowledge. Amazon updated encryption for Ring videos and is no longer letting police directly contact customers for video footage. It’s too soon to say what will happen with Instagram’s parental controls, but the business has already been under fire for its poor age verification; People under 13 are using the app, just lying about their birthdays. “There’s so many steps between the actual user activity of the kid and their intention to protect kids in this way that can be either exploited or not adhered to or circumvented,” said Jennie Noll, a professor of human development and family studies at Pennsylvania State University. It’s a lesson tech giants have learned again and again: Even the products with the best intentions aren’t immune to bad intent. —[Ilena Peng](mailto:ipeng5@bloomberg.net) If you read one thing Apple can be a fintech company, too. The Silicon Valley giant is developing its own [payment processing]( tech, along with risk assessment for lending, fraud analysis and credit checks, according to people inside the company. The plans are focused on future products, but the news still sent the stock of Apple partners CoreCard and Green Dot Corp. down more than 10% on Wednesday. What else you need to know Waymo will begin offering rides in San Francisco [without a driver]( behind the wheel.  How a secret deal helped Tesla dodge the [nickel crisis](. What to watch: SPAC deals are still going. Starry began trading on the NYSE at a [$1.76 billion value](. Its CEO talked to Bloomberg’s Emily Chang. Follow Us More from Bloomberg Dig gadgets or video games? [Sign up for Power On]( to get Apple scoops, consumer tech news and more in your inbox on Sundays. [Sign up for Game On]( to go deep inside the video game business, delivered on Fridays. Why not try both? 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