Meta is being urged to reverse its new age policy on WhatsApp by campaigners concerned about child internet welfare.

This Thursday, the social media behemoth announced that it would lower the minimum age required to have WhatsApp from 16 to 13 in the UK and the EU.

Most social media platforms, including Facebook and Instagram, have a minimum age requirement of 13, so the move is in line with Meta’s overall minimum age policy.

However, Smartphone Free Childhood, a campaign group, has said the new policy is “tone deaf,” and does not consider the potential negative side effects on children’s online safety and mental wellbeing.

In an interview with The Times, Smartphone Free Childhood co-founder Daisy Greenwell said: “WhatsApp is putting shareholder profits first and children’s safety second.”

She said that the move ignored the “increasingly loud alarm bells” that academics, doctors, teachers, and child safety experts have been ringing for years.

The campaigner went so far as the call the messaging app a “gateway drug” for all social media, as parents may be more open to their children using it as it functions like traditional texting.

“WhatsApp is far from risk-free,” she warned. “It’s often the first platform where children are exposed to extreme content, bullying is rife and it’s the messaging app of choice for sexual predators due to its end-to-end encryption.”

The recently passed Online Safety Act at certain points included stipulations that would essentially dismantle the integrity of end-to-end encryption by requiring platforms to scan messages for illegal content before they are encrypted. Ultimately, this was not included in the bill, and faced major backlash from messaging platforms including WhatsApp.

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While the move does lower the age threshold, Meta has said that the move simply puts WhatsApp’s requirements in line with other similar platforms.

Recently, Meta has taken steps to protect people on Instagram from ‘sextortion’ and unsolicited nudity with new tools that will be automatically activated for underage users.