Instagram has begun placing new and existing users under the age of 18 into so-called “Teen Account“, a move that will impact how tens of millions of teens interact with the platform. This new account type automatically applies a set of protections to young users, and only users 16 and older will be able to change some of these settings.
“Teen Accounts” will be private by default, limiting the visibility of younger users’ content and interactions. Additionally, restrictions will be implemented on direct messages, allowing only people they already follow or know to contact teens. Instagram has also introduced new features such as “Rest Mode”which silences notifications during the night, and the ability for teens to choose which topics they’re interested in to see in Explore and Recommendations. Parental controls have been enhanced, allowing parents to monitor their kids’ interactions and approve any changes to their account settings.
“This standardizes a lot of the work we’ve done, simplifies it, and extends it to all teens,” Antigone Davis, Meta’s global head of security, told The Verge. “It essentially provides a set of protections that are already in place and configured.”
Among the new parental controls, the ability for parents who want to supervise their teenagers on the app stands out. see who they’ve interacted with in the last seven days (without seeing the content of the messages). They will also be able to see which topics their children have chosen to view most often.
While Instagram will allow teens over the age of 16 to change these settings, younger teens will need a parent’s permission to make any changes, such as making their account public. Parents will then need to set up Instagram’s supervision tools to approve the change.
Instagram’s “Teen Accounts” will be gradually rolling out in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada. Teens signing up with new accounts will see the change first, followed by existing users in about a week. Meta plans to bring “Teen Accounts” in the European Union by the end of the year and extend the functionality to its other platforms in 2025.
But even with these protections extended to all teens on Instagram, questions remain about how effectively Meta can enforce them. “We know that some teens will try to lie about their age to get around these protections,” Davis says. “That’s why we’re creating new opportunities to verify a teen’s age.” Users attempting to change their age from under 18 to over 18 are already required to take a selfie video, upload a government-issued ID, or have other users confirm their age, but Instagram’s new systems go further.
One of the main challenges in protecting minors online is in fact verifying the age of users. Instagram is addressing this issue by using artificial intelligence to identify any discrepancies between the declared age and online behaviors. For example, if a user claims to be 18 but receives birthday greetings on his 14th birthday, the system might flag the anomaly.
Since the revelations of former Facebook employee Frances Haugen about internal documents detailing the company’s studies on teen mental health emerged in 2021, lawmakers have taken a tougher stance on social media platforms and their effect on children. Instagram has introduced a number of child safety features in recent years and launched parental controls in 2022 in response to these concerns. The platform has even agreed to help researchers study its impact on the mental health of teens and young adults.
Despite these efforts, lawmakers remain concerned. Nearly 40 states support the surgeon general’s proposal to place warnings on social media platforms, while the Senate passed a landmark law on child online safety in July.
What do you think about these new settings? Do you think they could be useful? Let us know in the comments below.
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