Earlier this year, more than 100 child health experts wrote an open letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, urging him to discontinue the app.

"At a time when there is mounting concern about how social media use affects adolescents' well being, it is particularly irresponsible to encourage children as young as pre-schoolers to start using a Facebook product," the authors wrote.

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But instead of heeding to their advice, Faceboook has now introduced the app in two other countries, while adding that it wants to promote "responsible use" of Messenger Kids.

It also created new features rooted in "principles of social and emotional learning" including "Kindness Stickers", a new set of photo stickers designed to inspire kindness towards others and "Messenger Kids Pledge", a pledge of guiding principles between parents and kids that encourage the responsible use of the app.

The points of the pledge are -- "Be Kind", "Be Respectful", "Be Safe", and "Have Fun".

Facebook said it was working in collaboration with researchers from the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and a global group of advisors to develop "Appreciation Mission", an interactive guide within the app that will encourage kids to discover and express appreciation for their friends and family.

"This is part of the 'Missions' section of the app where kids learn how to use certain features like starting a video call and sending a photo," Loren Cheng, Facebook's Product Management Director and Tarunya Govindarajan, Product Manager at the social networking site, said in a statement.

"In addition to these features, we'll continue to improve other parts of the app and controls based on parent and expert feedback.

"For example, one thing we heard consistently is that parents want more than one parent to have control over kid accounts, so starting today we're making it possible for two parents to manage accounts," Cheng and Govindarajan wrote.

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