In 2018, Facebook, seeking to expand its reach among younger users, quietly developed an app called Bell, designed to function as a social hub centered around high schools. The project, detailed in a recently filed court document, aimed to create a closed-campus environment where students could connect with classmates, discuss school life, and ultimately funnel into the broader Facebook ecosystem as they graduated. Despite extensive planning and design work, Bell never launched, a fact that has resurfaced amid ongoing legal challenges questioning Meta’s – Facebook’s parent company – strategies for attracting and retaining teenage users.
The internal presentation, dated April 2018, paints a picture of a platform intended to be deeply integrated into the daily lives of high school students. Bell envisioned features like forums for discussing sports, events, and school gossip, group chats organized by classes or clubs, and even an anonymous “Confessions” section reminiscent of the now-defunct app YikYak. The app also proposed integration with educational tools like Google Classroom, suggesting an ambition to become a central digital space for students’ academic and social lives.
According to the presentation, the core strategy behind Bell was to “win” users before they turned 18, establishing a long-term connection that would carry them onto the main Facebook platform after graduation. The app’s design emphasized exclusivity, limiting communication to within a student’s school, a feature intended to foster a sense of community and safety. “High School communication is important to teens and important for us to win,” the presentation stated, underscoring the company’s focus on capturing this demographic.
The emergence of details about Bell comes as Meta faces intense scrutiny in a landmark trial in Los Angeles. The lawsuit, brought by families, school districts, and state attorneys general, alleges that Meta, along with other social media giants like Google, ByteDance (TikTok), and Snap, deliberately designed their platforms to be addictive to children, despite internal research highlighting the potential for harm to their mental health. Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s CEO, recently testified in the case, facing questions about the company’s efforts to target younger users.
While Meta maintains that there is no conclusive link between social media use and mental health problems, and that the platforms have no duty to warn about potential dangers, the Bell project reveals a clear, early focus on cultivating a pipeline of young users. The company has argued that users stay on its platforms because they find them helpful for connecting with peers, and has pointed to new features in “Teen Accounts” designed to give parents more control and encourage responsible usage.
The history of Meta’s attempts to create platforms specifically for children is marked by several abandoned projects. In 2021, the company paused plans for an Instagram version for children under 13 following backlash from parent safety groups. A similar effort to build a Facebook platform for children in 2017 was also scrapped after negative feedback from parents. These abandoned projects, alongside Bell, demonstrate a consistent, though ultimately unrealized, ambition to establish a foothold in the younger demographic.
A spokesperson for Meta described Bell as an “early exploratory idea,” noting that it would have required significant moderation efforts. However, the company declined to explain why the app was ultimately shelved. The timing of the Bell project’s development, in 2018, coincides with a period of increased scrutiny surrounding Facebook’s data privacy practices and its role in the spread of misinformation. It’s possible that concerns about regulatory backlash or public perception contributed to the decision to abandon the app.
The details of Bell are now part of a larger narrative about the strategies employed by social media companies to attract and retain young users. Sacha Haworth, executive director of the Tech Oversight Project, a nonprofit advocacy group, argues that the ongoing trials are “providing a look behind the curtain” and revealing that the industry’s practices were “even worse than we imagined.” The case underscores the growing pressure on tech companies to prioritize the well-being of young users and to be more transparent about the potential risks associated with social media use.
The internal presentation outlined an ambitious rollout plan for Bell, aiming to reach 80% of U.S. High schools by the end of 2020 and subsequently expand into Australia, Canada, and European countries. The app’s success hinged on creating a compelling user experience that catered to the specific needs and interests of high school students, offering a space for communication, community building, and information sharing. The fact that Bell never materialized raises questions about the challenges of building a successful social media platform targeted at a specific demographic, and the potential trade-offs between growth and responsible design.
The focus on younger users isn’t limited to the United States. Australia recently enacted a ban on children under 16 from using social media, reflecting a growing global concern about the impact of these platforms on young people’s mental and emotional health. As the legal battles and public debates surrounding social media’s influence continue, the story of Bell serves as a reminder of the industry’s ongoing efforts to capture the attention – and data – of the next generation.
