Facebook is coming for your kids.

The social media giant is launching a messaging app for children to chat with their parents and with friends approved by their parents.

The free app is aimed at kids under 13, who can鈥檛 yet have their own accounts under Facebook鈥檚 rules, though they often do.

Messenger Kids comes with a slew of controls for parents. The service won鈥檛 let children add their own friends or delete messages 鈥� only parents can do that. Kids don鈥檛 get a separate Facebook or Messenger account; rather, it鈥檚 an extension of a parent鈥檚 account. Messenger Kids came out Monday in the U.S. as an app for Apple devices 鈥� the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Versions for Android and Amazon鈥檚 tablets are coming later.

A KIDS-FOCUSED EXPERIENCE

While children do use messaging and social media apps designed for teenagers and adults, those services aren鈥檛 built for them, said Kristelle Lavallee, a children鈥檚 psychology expert who advised Facebook on designing the service.

鈥淭he risk of exposure to things they were not developmentally prepared for is huge,鈥� she said.

Messenger Kids, meanwhile, 鈥渋s a result of seeing what kids like,鈥� which is images, emoji and the like. Face filters and playful masks can be distracting for adults, Lavallee said, but for kids who are just learning how to form relationships and stay in touch with parents digitally, they are ways to express themselves.

Lavallee, who is content strategist at the Center on Media and Child Health at Boston Children鈥檚 Hospital and Harvard University, called Messenger Kids a 鈥渦seful tool鈥� that 鈥渕akes parents the gatekeepers.鈥� But she said that while Facebook made the app 鈥渨ith the best of intentions,鈥� it鈥檚 not yet known how people will actually use it.

As with other tools Facebook has released in the past, intentions and real-world use do not always match up. Facebook鈥檚 live video streaming feature, for example, has been used for plenty of innocuous and useful things, but also to stream crimes and suicides.

HOOKED ON FACEBOOK

Is Messenger Kids simply a way for Facebook to rope in the young ones?

Stephen Balkam, CEO of the non-profit Family Online Safety Institute, said 鈥渢hat train has left the station.鈥�

Federal law prohibits internet companies from collecting personal information on kids under 13 without their parents鈥� 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, Balkam said millions of kids under 13 are already on Facebook, with or without their parents鈥� approval.

He said Facebook is trying to deal with the situation pragmatically by steering young Facebook users to a service designed for them.

MARKETING MATTERS

Facebook said Messenger Kids won鈥檛 show ads or collect data for marketing, though it will collect some data it says are necessary to run the service. Facebook also said it won鈥檛 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.

James Steyer, CEO of the kids-focused non-profit group Common Sense, said that while he liked the idea of a messaging app that requires parental sign-ups, many questions remain. Among them: Will it always remain ad-free, and will parents get ads based on the service?

鈥淲hy should parents simply trust that Facebook is acting in the best interest of kids?鈥� Steyer said in a statement. 鈥淲e encourage Facebook to clarify their policies from the start so that it is perfectly clear what parents are signing up for.鈥�