Facebook to launch messaging app for teens

In a bid to protect vulnerable teenagers from online bullying and exploitation, Facebook is reportedly launching a new messaging app that will allow parents to monitor who their children are in contact with.

The app, called Talk, cannot be searched by the general public but just by the teens who use it and will be closed to strangers who are looking to take advantage of teenagers on the internet.

According to the website The Information, a software code was found in the main app that revealed signs of new parental controls that would set the app apart from Facebook's Messenger app.

The code said, "Talk is a messaging app where you fully control the contacts and your child uses the Talk app to chat with you in Messenger."

The app is expected to be for those who are 13 years old and above and will not require the user to have a Facebook profile.

Recently, the Australian newspaper reported that social network can help advertisers target users as young as 14.

While the parental controls in the new messaging app may turn some teens off due to limitations on their freedom on the social media, the service may be helpful to parents who are worried about their inability to monitor to whom their kids talk to online.

In an earlier report on YourStory, titled: Millennials wake up to Snapchat not Facebook, it was reported that 58 percent of college students check Snapchat over Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn combined. Instagram accounted for 27 percent, Facebook for 13 percent, and LinkedIn for two percent, or a total of 42 percent.

In a poll licensed by LendEDU, a US-based marketplace for private student loans and student loan refinancing, it asked 9,381 college students one question: “You open your phone and have a notification badge on Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and LinkedIn…which do you click first?”

“Checking Snapchat has become a ritualistic occurrence for most millennials, a demographic coveted by nearly every single company in existence today,” LendEDU said.