Facebook Messenger for Kids Now Lets Children Add Friends Themselves

Facebook has added a new feature to its under-13 chat application Messenger Kids, which makes it easier for the children to add their friends on the platform.

"Parents have to turn on a setting that creates a four-word passphrase that is used to generate these contact requests," Tech Crunch reported on Tuesday.

The connection requests will be sent directly to the parents, who have to still approve every contact before they can interact with their kids via the platform.

"Both parents will receive a contact request from their child and both have to approve the request before the kids can begin chatting.

"In other words, this doesn't represent a loosening of the rules around parental approvals - all contact requests still require parents' explicit attention and confirmation, as before," the report added.

The new feature will allow kids between the ages of six and 13 to exchange photographs, videos and text messages with their friends and with adults once they have been approved by their parents.

However, according to a Guardian report, Facebook has been slammed for adding the feature to its Messenger Kids app that makes it more addictive to use for children as young as six.

The social network rolled out Messenger Kids in December 2017, which combines most of the functionality of its flagship Messenger app with comprehensive parental controls over their kids' accounts.