FFMPA / Content and safety standards

Content and safety standards

FFMPA exists to give children real news without the parts that frighten, confuse or harm them. These are the rules every story must pass before it reaches a child.

1. Freshness

• Two editions a day, at 6:00 AM and 7:00 PM in the child's country.
• Only news first reported in the last 72 hours. Older stories are removed automatically.
• Short explainers about dates in the coming week (festivals, observances, sky events) are clearly labelled as such.
• Each edition holds 12 to 20 stories, mixing local news for the child's country with world news.

2. How a story is made

• Stories are gathered from established news organisations, wire services, official bodies and scientific institutions.
• Every fact must appear in at least two reputable sources, or one primary source such as an official statement.
• A draft is written in two reading levels with software assistance, then read, corrected and approved by a human editor. Nothing is published automatically.
• Sources are named under every story.

3. Language rules

• No swearing, slurs, insults or mocking language of any kind, including in quotes.
• No graphic description of violence, injury, illness, crime or death. Numbers of people hurt are given only when essential, without detail.
• No sexual content, and no detail about drugs, alcohol, gambling or weapons.
• No fear words or sensational headlines (for example: horror, terrifying, shocking, nightmare).
• Victims, suspects and children involved in news events are never named or pictured.
• Explorers (5 to 9): short sentences, everyday words, and every harder word explained.
• Thinkers (10 to 12): fuller context and real terms, each explained the first time it appears.
• Navigators (13 to 15): the Thinkers text plus wider context, a question worth arguing about and the jobs behind the story.

4. Topics we never cover

• Suicide and self-harm, sexual violence and abuse, details of terror attacks or mass casualty events, crime stories told for shock, celebrity gossip, and gambling or betting.
• War and conflict are covered only at the Thinkers and Navigators levels, calmly and factually, and parents can switch them off.
• Disasters are covered with a focus on what happened, how people are being helped and how to stay safe.

5. Fairness in politics and belief

• We explain how things work (elections, parliaments, courts) and what happened. We do not tell children what to think.
• Leaders and parties are described with the same tone and the same care. Opinions are labelled as someone's opinion.
• Religions, cultures and countries are described with respect.

6. Layers of protection

• An automatic word filter and a sensitive topic classifier screen every draft.
• A human editor approves every story and every explainer.
• Parents choose topics, reading level, sensitive news and daily limits behind a PIN.
• No comments, chat, messaging or user uploads, and no links to other websites anywhere in the app. Sources and photo credits are named in plain text.
• No personalised ads. Editions may include a small number of sponsor cards labelled Sponsored, each approved by our team, shown the same way to every child in a country, and switched off at the Explorers level by default.
• Sharing sends only a public link to the story. It never includes the child's name, saved words or settings, and parents can turn sharing off.

7. Photos

We only use photos that are free to use: public domain images, Creative Commons images used under their licence, and official press or government libraries. Each photo is credited in plain text. When a photo is missing or not suitable for children, we show a neutral graphic instead. We never use AI-generated images of real people or real events.

8. Corrections

If we get something wrong, we fix it in the next edition and add a short correction note to the story. Report a problem to [safety@ffmpa.com].