Facebook is launching a messaging app for kids as young as six, as it looks to woo parents who want their children to have a safer space on the internet to talk.

Facebook Messenger for kids, which will first launch in the US, is designed with controls that allow parents to decide who their children can connect with online. Kids will be able to use it for videos, photos and augmented reality educational experiences.

The company says it will not show advertising in the app or share children’s data with marketers or the main site. 

David Marcus, vice-president of messaging products, said Facebook relying on parents being connected to the parents of their children’s friends gives it an edge over rival services.

“The vast majority of classroom and family connections are currently Facebook friends,” he said.

The new app is being launched just as YouTube has had to defend itself against allegations that it allowed inappropriate videos to be published on the site featuring children and sexualised comments.

Major marketers including Diageo, Mars and Hewlett-Packard withdrew their advertising after it appeared alongside the videos. Separately, YouTube has been trying to combat people posting violent videos using family friendly cartoon characters.

Facebook said the new app will be more intensely moderated than the main app to try to ensure that children do not access inappropriate material. For example, scanning messages for kids sending naked photos.

The company did not give details of how large the moderation team would be and it is not known how effective its automated detection systems are. On the main Facebook app, the company mainly relies on users flagging content as inappropriate — be it violent imagery or fake news.

Facebook has tried many tactics to ensure younger users want to use the social network. For teenagers, it tried and failed to buy Snapchat, before copying one of its main features — the 24-photo collection called a “Story” — into Instagram, its photo sharing app, and other services.

It also recently bought tbh, an app popular with teens that allows users to give compliments anonymously to their friends. 

Facebook said there will be no automatic migration from Facebook Messenger kids into the main app once the children become 13, the minimum age for an account on the social network.

Jean Twenge, author of iGen, said Messenger Kids is likely to be a better venue for children than other social media sites, which many join before the age of 13 anyway.

But she warned that predators and inappropriate content are not the only dangers to children online.

“If it significantly increases the amount of time kids are spending with digital media, it could keep them from more beneficial activities (like in-person social interaction, exercise, or sleeping). Spending more time on screens and less on non-screen activities is linked to unhappiness and depression,” she said. “Parents should also be on the lookout for cyberbullying — friendships can turn quickly at this age, so even if kids are only communicating with approved peers issues can still crop up.”

Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said there are still many unanswered questions about Messenger for Kids: “Are communications on Messenger encrypted end to end? Which legal rules will govern the collection and use of personal data?”

Antigone Davis, head of global safety and families at Facebook, said the company consulted with parents groups and organisations that specialise in child safety while creating the app. “We have both an opportunity and an obligation here to address the needs of parents,” she said.