KUALA LUMPUR – Instagram is rolling out major protection features for adolescent users with its new “Teen Accounts”, with automatic, built-in protections to limit who can contact minors as well as the content they see.
The social media platform said the new settings for teenagers will immediately apply to new Instagram sign-ups, while teens already using the channel will be moved into Teen Accounts starting next week.
Existing underaged user accounts will be moved into Teen Accounts within the next 60 days in the US, UK, Canada and Australia, as well as in the European Union later this year, Instagram said in a statement.
“Teens around the world will start to get Teen Accounts in January. We’ll also bring Teen Accounts to other Meta platforms next year.
“The new Teen Account protections are designed to address parents’ biggest concerns, including who their teens are talking to online, the content they’re seeing and whether their time is being well spent,” Instagram’s statement dated September 17 said.
“Protective settings” in the new Teen Account include default private account settings for all teen users, requiring them to accept new followers while people who do not follow them cannot see their content or interact with them.
Other automatic settings are messaging restrictions, sensitive content restrictions and limiting interactions whereby teen users can only be tagged or mentioned by users they follow.
Alongside restrictions on sensitive content, Instagram is giving teen users a new feature which lets them select topics they want to see.
An anti-bullying feature called “Hidden Words”, will be turned on at the “most restrictive version” to filter out offensive words and phrases from comments and direct message (DM) requests.
Another feature in the new Teen Account is a time limit reminder, where a notification will tell users to leave the app after 60 minutes each day.
There is also a sleep mode that kicks in between 10pm and 7am and mutes notifications during the night while sending auto-replies to DMs.
Instagram said it will only let teens under 16 change these built-in protections to be less strict with a parent’s permission.
To do this, parents must also have or create an Instagram account to set up “parental supervision” with their teens.
“Once supervision is established, parents can approve and deny their teens’ requests to change settings or allow teens to manage their settings themselves. Soon, parents will also be able to change these settings directly to be more protective,” Instagram said.
However, “parental supervision” will not allow a parent or guardian to see the teen’s search history or chats, nor post for them, nor reset their password.
Going forward, Instagram said it is currently building technology “to proactively find” accounts belonging to teems who may lie about their age and use an adult birthday to set up their account
“This technology will allow us to proactively find these teens and place them in the same protections offered by Teen Account settings,” Instagram said, adding that this will be tested in the US early next year. – September 18, 2024