In the folklore of the startup world, few figures loom larger than the teenager. 在创业界的传说中，没谁像青少年这个群体那样令人担忧。Teenagers see the future, set trends and spend money, or compel parents to spend it for them. 他们能意识到未来、引导潮流、花钱或被迫父母为他们花钱。Their behavior has become an obsession for entrepreneurs.企业家着迷于他们的不道德。

This would seem to bode well for Musical.ly, an app that is young in every sense of the word. 对应用程序妈妈咪呀(Musical.ly)来说，这或许是个好兆头。The Shanghai-based company founded in 2014 claims more than 100 million users, most of whom, the company says, are in the 13-20 age bracket. 从各种角度谈，它都是一个年长的应用于。

这家上海公司创办于2014年，堪称享有逾1亿用户。该公司称之为，他们大多在13岁至20岁这个年龄段。In August, the company teamed up with MTV for a promotion tied to the Video Music Awards.今年8月，该公司与MTV合作，与音乐录影带大奖(Video Music Awards)绑推展。What is striking about the app, though, is how many of its users appear to be even younger than that. 不过，这个应用于引人注目的一点是它的很多用户或许比它所声称的还要年长。

Musical.ly has not just found the coveted teenage audience — it may have gone lower. 妈妈咪呀不仅寻找了这些令人艳羡的青少年观众，而且还有可能寻找了年龄更加小的用户。And it points to a growing tension between younger users, technology companies, and the norms and laws that regulate them both.而且它展现更加年长的用户、技术公司以及管控他们双方的规范与法规之间的紧绷关系。The app encourages a youthful audience in subtle and obvious ways. 该应用于以精妙、显著的方式希望年长观众。

It lets users create short videos in which they can lip-sync, dance or goof around to popular songs, movie scenes and other audio sources, and then post the videos to an Instagram-style feed.它让用户创作较短视频，他们可以在里面回来流行歌曲、电影画面或其他音频资源对口型合唱、唱歌或玩闹，然后把视频公布到一个类似于Instagram的订阅者源。Its featured feed includes stars popular with young listeners, including Ariana Grande and Selena Gomez, as well as lesser-known talent and social media personalities who have crossed over from services like Vine. 它以年长听众讨厌的巨星，比如爱莉安娜格兰德(Ariana Grande)和塞琳娜戈麦斯(Selena Gomez)，以及一些从Vine等网站切线来的不过于有名的明星和网红公布的视频为声援。And its tool for posting videos includes an entire category for songs from Disney films and TV shows.其公布视频的工具还包括从迪士尼电影歌曲到电视节目等各种分类。

The app does not collect or show the age of its users, but some of its top-ranked users, whose posts routinely collect millions of likes, called hearts, appear from their videos and profile photos to be in grade school. 该应用于不搜集或表明用户的年龄，不过从它的一些顶级用户（他们公布的视频一般来说能获得好几百万的心型拜）公布的视频和头像来看，他们都是小学生。Until recently, the app had a feature that suggested users to follow based on their location. 直到前不久，该应用于发售一项功能，建议用户根据自己的方位展开注目。

In New York, that feature revealed a list composed largely not just of teenagers, but of children.在纽约，那项功能表明出有大部分用户不仅有青少年，而且有儿童。This is no question the youngest social network we’ve ever seen, said Gary Vaynerchuk, chief executive of VaynerMedia, an advertising agency that focuses on social media. 这毫无疑问是我们见过的最年长的社交网络，专攻社交媒体的广告公司VaynerMedia的首席执行官加里维纳查克(Gary Vaynerchuk)说道。

Vaynerchuk, who has helped clients produce campaigns for the platform, said he first spotted the app in the iTunes App Store charts, and through Musical.ly videos reposted to other services like Instagram.维纳查克协助客户为该平台制作广告。他说道，他最初是通过iTunes的App Store列表以及发送到Instagram等网站上的妈妈咪呀视频注意到这个应用于的。I would say that Snapchat and Instagram, they skew a little bit young, he said. 我得说道，Snapchat和Instagram的用户稍年长，他说道。

But with Musical.ly, you’re talking about first, second, third grade.不过，妈妈咪呀的用户都是一年级、二年级、三年级的学生。This puts Musical.ly in a strange position. 这将妈妈咪呀置放一个怪异的方位。Websites and online service operators that target users under 13 must meet federal requirements regarding the collection and sharing of personal information, which is defined broadly to include names, photos or videos, or persistent identifiers, such as usernames. 以13岁以下的儿童为目标用户的网站或在线服务运营商必需符合联邦政府关于搜集和共享个人信息的拒绝，还包括名字、照片、视频或长年身份，比如用户名。The restrictions are part of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule, often called COPPA, enacted by the Federal Trade Commission.这些容许是联邦贸易委员会(Federal Trade Commission)制定的儿童网络隐私维护规定（Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule，一般来说被称作COPPA）的一部分。

Services that are more openly marketed toward children often stringently adhere to COPPA’s privacy rules. 更加公开发表地向儿童展开推展的服务商往往不会严格遵守COPPA的隐私规定。Vine Kids, for example, is a limited and largely passive service with no usernames or video posting capabilities; similarly, YouTube Kids is essentially an app full of streaming children’s programming, walled off from the rest of YouTube’s ecosystem. 比如，Vine Kids是一个受限的、相当大程度上十分被动的应用于，它没用户名或视频公布功能。

某种程度，YouTube Kids本质上是一个儿童节目在线播放平台，与YouTube生态系统的其他部分分隔。In contrast, Musical.ly, like Snapchat or Instagram, is a full-functioning social network, popular with young people but not openly marketed to them.相比之下，妈妈咪呀和Snapchat或Instagram一样，是一个功能齐全的社交网络，在年轻人中很热门，不过不是公开发表向他们推展。Such discussions about privacy can feel strained against the backdrop of technological change. 这些关于隐私的辩论在技术变革的背景下变得有些只得。

The first version of COPPA became law in 1998, almost a decade before the iPhone was introduced. COPPA的第一版是1998年通过法律的，那完全是在iPhone发售10年前。Last year, the research firm Influence Central said that, on average, parents who give their children smartphones do so at age 12. 去年，调查公司Influence Central称之为，平均值来讲，父母在孩子12岁时给他们智能手机。And once they have a phone, they get apps.孩子们一旦享有手机，就开始认识应用于。

In a study of the law published in 2011 by the academic journal First Monday, researchers suggested that COPPA created intractable issues. 在学术期刊《First Monday》2011年公布的一项关于该法律的研究中，研究者指出，COPPA生产了一些棘手的问题。To remain compliant, tech companies either cut off young users or claimed ignorance of their presence, while parents, for whom the law is meant to provide guidance and comfort, often ended up helping their children circumvent sign-up rules.为了遵从法律，技术公司要么不想年长用户用于，要么假装这些用户不不存在，而父母们虽然指出这项法律是为了获取指导，让人放心，结果却往往是协助孩子们跨过登记规定。

Increasing the current style of enforcement, the report concluded, would only encourage firms to focus on denying access rather than providing privacy protection or cooperating with parents.这份报告指出，增强目前的执法人员形式只不会希望公司把注意力放到拒绝接受采访上，而不是获取隐私维护或与父母因应上。In short, children are using their smartphones much like the rest of us, whether or not they are comprehensively addressed by regulations or by broader cultural conventions.简而言之，儿童用于智能手机的方式和我们其他这些人很像，不管他们总体来讲否受到法规或更加普遍的文化传统的注目。

Alex Hofmann, president of Musical.ly, said the company tries to be mindful of its popularity with younger users.妈妈咪呀的总裁亚历克斯霍夫曼(Alex Hofmann)说道，该公司希望注目它在更加年长用户中的风行。One of the differences to other apps, he said, is that we don’t only talk to the musers — the company’s term for users — we talk to the parents.我们与其他应用于的一个不同之处在于，他说道，我们不仅与muser（该公司对用户的称谓）交流，还与他们的父母交流。He keeps close counsel with a network of a few dozen top users, and some of their families, and frequently asks for feedback from both regarding everything from user safety to new features. (The company’s support page contains an entire section directed toward parents — one that notes the app is intended for 13-plus only.)他与几十名顶级用户和其中部分人的家庭维持密切联系，常常征询从用户安全性到新功能否好用的各种意见（该公司的反对页面有一部分内容几乎是寄给父母的，铺陈该应用于仅有面向13岁以上的用户）。Ultimately, Hofmann said, he expects the app to diversify its audience.霍夫曼说道，他希望该应用于最后能让自己的用户更加多样化。

We really see ourselves as a real social network, and as a network for different age groups, he said.我们知道指出自己是一个确实的社交网络，面向有所不同的年龄层，他说道。For now, the company will have to navigate a peculiar if widely envied situation — capitalizing on its apparent popularity with an audience that it cannot fully acknowledge, watched over by wary but increasingly complicit parents.目前，该公司将被迫在一个独有而颇受艳羡的境况中前进——利用一个它无法几乎否认的用户群对它的显著注目，而这群用户受到警觉而又更加串通一气的父母的监控。A year ago, there was basically nobody who was 40 years old on Snapchat, Vaynerchuk said. If Musical.ly can hold on, they will age up.一年前，Snapchat上完全没40岁以上的人，维纳查克说道，如果妈妈咪呀能坚持下去，用户们也不会渐渐长大。

本文来源：彩神Vll-www.weierde.net