London.- Instagram on Tuesday launched a tool that encourages teenagers to take a break from the photo platform, and announced other tools in order to protect young people from harmful content on the Facebook-owned social network.
The “Take A Break” ad appears on phone screens when the app has been used for a long time, Instagram director Adam Mosseri explained in a blog post. The feature is already available in the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, New Zealand and Australia and will be available in other parts of the world next year, it added.
Users will see announcements about that new program and will be encouraged to take more breaks in the future, according to the blog. It is one of the measures taken by Facebook, now known as Meta Platforms, amid criticism for not doing enough to protect minors from harmful content and under the threat of new official regulations.
Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee turned company whistleblower, has testified before US and European lawmakers about the effects of Instagram, saying the social network causes psychological and self-esteem problems among young people, especially young women, even in some cases eating disorders and suicidal tendencies.
Haugen spoke to the US Congress again last week, where he urged lawmakers to pass proposals put forward after his first appearance in October, including free speech protections on those platforms.
He also outlined proposed new rules to regulate internet content, a process in which the UK and the European Union have made the most progress.
Also Tuesday, Instagram announced that early next year it will offer tools for parents that will let them know how much time their children spend on Instagram, and limit that time.
Instagram also indicated that it is working on mechanisms to prevent a person from tagging or mentioning a teenager who is not following them, to encourage the user to do other things if they have been looking at a single thread for a long time, and stricter measures on the messages, hashtags and recommended accounts, in order to prevent the spread of harmful or sensitive content.
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