Meta is taking a turn to control teen access and interactions: it will now include all under-16s who use Instagram within a new account type that will have a parental lock by default. Those called “Teen Accounts” will be linked to parents and they will be the ones who can authorize what their children do on Instagram.
With the evolution of Instagram from a purely photographic application to a multi-content social network, the number of users has not only grown exponentially (currently 1.4 billion), but also in diversity. If at first we wondered who wanted to share our photos, now it is those who want to follow their favorite influencers or, simply, those who want to stay in touch with their friends. And this is a danger for minors.
Instagram to include under-16s in teen accounts
Until now, Instagram offered parents a range of controls to remotely manage their children’s profiles, although this management was up to adults to decide. To avoid privacy and security risks for children, Meta has changed its control policy.
As announced by Instagram, Meta is creating new accounts for teenagers with the idea of adapting the content and capabilities of the social network to the needs of young people and their parents. These accounts will offer a whole series of parental controls to which supervisors will have access. Although yes, will not be optional.
New teen accounts will be automatically enabled for all Instagram users aged 16 and under. And, by default, they will keep all of these parental controls in place:
- Private accounts by default. Teens will have to manually approve new followers. Those who don’t follow teens can’t see their content or interact with them. And parents will receive reports on all these actions.
- Messaging Restrictions. Minors can only receive messages from people they follow or are already connected to.
- Control of sensitive content. Instagram restricts access in the strictest way; limiting access to sensitive content in Explore and Reels.
- Limited interactions. Teens can only be tagged or mentioned on Instagram by people they follow. Instagram enables the “Hidden Words” feature to filter out offensive comments and messages.
- Deadline reminders. They will receive notifications to exit the app after 60 minutes of use.
- Sleep mode enabled. Between 10:00 PM and 7:00 AM the next day, notifications will be silenced. Instagram will automatically respond to direct messages informing you that the minor is unavailable.
Once the teenager’s account is up and running, parents will have access to deactivate usage controls on Instagram. Remotely and from the main app, all this so that minors can use Meta services in a much safer way. Of course, there will always be the possibility of opening a new account avoiding age registration: the automatic teenager profile. This only applies to those who have declared themselves to be 16 years of age or younger.
Instagram can’t do anything if the teenager lies about his age when registering the account, but it is trying to detect these fake registrations.
Instagram will begin activating its teen accounts today with a notification to those users starting next week. In the first 60 days, the change will have been implemented in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. Meta assures that teen accounts will arrive in Europe at the end of 2024 and that from January 2025 they will be deployed in the rest of the world.
Cover Image | Edited mid-term
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