Family Tech Blog

Tag: pre teens

  • Now ANYONE Can Make a Facebook Camera Filter!

    Now ANYONE Can Make a Facebook Camera Filter!

    Augmented Reality (AR) and Location Filters have become a mainstay of the social media camera. Snapchat started and Instagram, Facebook quickly followed suit, and before you know it, we’re all posting images and videos of ourselves with animated beards, mustaches, and hats. Your favorite fancy additions to your photos have always been created by select developers or advertisers so that those who run our favorite social media outlets can keep tabs on what’s being allowed on their platform. That has now, officially, changed. Facebook has opened up their public Filter and AR creator tools.

    “Starting today, we’re expanding availability of the platform and the AR Studio creative tool to everyone.” – https://www.facebook.com/FacebookforDevelopers/

    It’s truly as simple as going to the facebook developers site and downloading the AR software. Making non-AR overlays is even easier. The tool is built into the website. You simply upload your images and move them around wherever you’d like on the screen. You can use the tools to resize and edit your image as well as to remove the background so you get a transparent effect. While making a 3D mask takes some coding and design experience, making an overlay is a pretty simple process that just about anyone should be able to do.

    What Parents Should Know

    Obviously, there is no stopping the “AR train.” We all love taking photos with those crazy filters and it’s so neat to put some strange creature on your countertop and film it playing the guitar. Until now, we could trust that content being posted as filters on the Facebook camera had been created by legitimate developers and didn’t contain anything that wasn’t allowed by Facebook’s guidelines. Allowing public access to these tools basically makes filters and AR User Generated Content. I made one for FamilyTechBlog in about six minutes. There was no approval process (as far as I could tell) which leads me to believe that inappropriate content will only be identified by a “user flag and review” system. This could lead to who knows what kind of violent or adult-oriented filters showing up on our Facebook (and most likely eventually Instagram) camera.

    My advice for parents is to continue to talk to your kids about what content they use and see on their social media accounts. User Generated Content means that most of what has been posted hasn’t been edited or reviewed by anyone who can pull down non-approved posts. Algorithms and a flag system can only get so far in protecting our families from dangerous content. Parents should always be seeing what is posted by their kids and what their kids are seeing in the apps they use.

     

  • Musical.ly Updates Adds “Watch Next” Recommendations

    Musical.ly Updates Adds “Watch Next” Recommendations

    Musical.ly announced earlier this summer that they are going to be featuring original shows from networks like NBC, Seventeen Magazine, and Viacom. We’ve written before about how we don’t like their lack of age verification even though the CEO seems to think it’s no big deal. The lip-syncing video app’s newest update will put more previously unseen and original content in front of your kids. The updates include a “Watch Next” feature that will use what’s called “computer vision” to see what they are watching and make a decision about what other videos (original content or user generated) to recommend they view next.

    The No. 1 goal of the new app design is to make “a wide range of content more accessible,” Hofmann said. – Variety.com

    This update also includes a new look and feel to the app and some new ways to personalize your profile page. The most interesting addition, from a parental control standpoint, is the idea that an algorithm is going to be recommending more videos for your kids to watch.

    What Parents Should Know

    This feature isn’t entirely new to streaming apps. You’ve seen Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, and YouTube feature videos or shows that they think you might enjoy. Their recommendations are based on what you’ve been watching, just like those in the Musical.ly app. The concern, here, is some of what may be available on Musical.ly and the fact that most parents don’t keep an eye on what their kids do on the app. 

    I still don’t recommend parents allow this app on their kids’ and young teenager’s phones because of the lack of age verification. It’s still on our uninstall list and will remain there until they take the risk of predators contacting kids on this app more seriously.

  • Should Your Kids Use Sarahah?

    Should Your Kids Use Sarahah?

    Sarahah is an app that snuck up the charts over the past weeks. It was originally put on the app store in June but is already sitting at number one on the free app charts in iOS. This app allows you to leave anonymous comments about people. The idea is that, since it’s completely anonymous, you can be honest and say what you really think. This can obviously lead to some really encouraging and uplifting posts, maybe it could cause a crush to reveal themselves, but definitely, it will cause mean people to do what mean people do. The risk of bullying on this app is very very high.

    This isn’t the first app of its kind but none have risen in popularity so quickly. “Sarahah” is the Arabic word for honesty, the app’s website describes the goal of the app simply:

    “Sarahah helps you in discovering your strengths and areas for improvement by receiving honest feedback from your employees and your friends in a private manner.”

    Again, the app is very new but development is happening fast (five updates since its June 13th release) and the app promises more features to come. Something like a planet icon on the bottom of the screen seems to hint at a future explore or discover page and they mention on their site that they’re studying an option to allow users to reply to the comments that come through Sarahah. The appeal of the app is obvious, most of us wish we could say whatever we are thinking to someone and there are also those of us that wish we could hear exactly what people think of us all the time. This may be fun or even cathartic for grown adults, but when teens and tweens are in the throes of development, hormones, and emotion, is this app a good idea?

    What Parents Should Know

    My Facebook feed has begun to blow up with Sarahah messages that have been screenshotted and shared. Most of the ones I see are people celebrating a super nice comment they got from someone but I’ve seen a few that were laughing at the commenter who was being a jerk. Those I’ve seen on Sarahah were adults, mostly because I don’t follow many young people on Facebook but there is no doubt, seeing this app climb the charts like it did, that there are younger users too. Parents should be cautioned that this app is rated 17+ for unrestricted web access, profanity, and adult humor. The issue is that since anyone who wants can post whatever they want (it’s called user generated content) it’s next to impossible to ensure there will be no adult content on the app. Secondly, I warn parents, as I did above, about the dangers of bullying through this app. The bully follows our kids around in their pocket and this app gives them the ability to say whatever they want without any way to identify who they are.

    There is already an epidemic of kids feeling like they can say whatever they want online without consequence. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case because the one reading what is written feels real emotions based on what’s been said. The ability to be completely anonymous could cause kids to be even crueler and could even lead to kids who wouldn’t say anything mean to some one actually doing it because they don’t see how they can be identified as the culprit. You can block users who you don’t want to message you anymore but once you’ve done that the damage could already be done.

    My advice is to disallow this app on your kids’ phones. You can do it the old fashion way by looking at their phone yourself and uninstalling that app if you see it. You can also set age restrictions in the app store or parental control/restrictions options on your kids’ devices. This should block Sarahah since it’s rated 17+. As an adult, maybe you enjoy this app, I would advise caution to you too. Not only are you putting yourself out there to be spoken to anonymously by anyone who could say whatever they want but you’re also setting an example for your kids.