Instagram has introduced new features to improve children’s online safety. (Photo: iStock)
To improve the online security of children, Instagram is setting accounts of users under 18 to “PRIVATE” by default. This built-in privacy measure will give you parents greater control over their children’s Instagram accounts. A private account means that only followers approved by the account holder can see their posts. Instagram, owned by Goalwill launch this feature as one of the company’s most important steps to manage the use of the platform by minors.
In January, Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologized to parents during a Senate hearing on child online safety. These parents had claimed that Instagram contributed to the suicide or exploitation of their children.
Some of the security measures include sending notifications to teenagers If you spend more than 60 minutes on Instagram, a ‘sleep mode’ will be activated, which disables notifications and sends automatic responses to direct messages between 10:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m.
Meta is currently facing lawsuits from several US states, after being accused of “harming young people and contributing to the youth mental health crisis by knowingly and deliberately designing features on Instagram and Facebook that addict children to their platforms,” AP reported.
Instagram Built-In Protections
“We built Teen Accounts with parents and teens in mind. The new Teen Accounts protections are designed to address parents’ top concerns, like who their teens talk to online, what content they’re viewing, and whether their time is being well spent. These protections are turned on automatically, and parents decide whether teens under 16 can change any of these settings to be less strict,” META posted. The document lists the following changes:
- Private accounts: With private accounts set to default, teens must accept new followers, and people who don’t follow them can’t see their content or interact with them. This applies to all teens under 16 (including those already on Instagram and those who sign up) and to teens under 18 when they sign up for the app. (Updated September 17 at 11:18 a.m. PT to clarify how private accounts apply.)
- Messaging restrictions: Teens will be placed on the strictest messaging settings, so they can only receive messages from people they follow or are already connected to.
- Sensitive content restrictions: Teens will automatically be placed in the most restrictive setting of our sensitive content control, which limits the type of sensitive content (such as content that shows people fighting or promotes cosmetic procedures) that teens see in places like Explore and Reels.
- Limited interactions: Teens can only be tagged or mentioned by people they follow. We’ll also automatically turn on the most restrictive version of our anti-bullying feature, Hidden Words, so that offensive words and phrases are filtered out of teens’ comments and direct message requests.
- Time limit reminders: Teens will receive notifications telling them to leave the app after 60 minutes each day.
- Sleep Mode Enabled: Sleep Mode will activate between 10pm and 7am, silencing notifications overnight and sending automatic replies to direct messages.
Teenagers between 17 and 18 years old can modify these settings, but those under 16 will need their parents’ approval to make changes to the default settings. This implementation will not be immediate and Meta is also preparing to address the problem of underage users lying about their age.
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