Teens who use Instagram will soon be moved into a new category of accounts with enhanced privacy measures and increased parental oversight, as the social media platform’s parent organization, Meta, plans to roll out a “teen accounts” feature that’s designed to automatically assign all teens to private accounts, regardless of their attempts to lie about their age.
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BREAKING: Instagram will automatically move teens to private accounts with increased restrictions and parental controls.
— NBC News (@NBCNews) September 17, 2024
These accounts will be restricted from messaging, tagging or mentioning individuals that users already follow, in what is the company’s most substantive effort yet to clamp down on Instagram’s use by minors, NBC News reported.
The feature is Meta’s latest effort aimed at addressing concerns about child safety across various platforms.
In January, during a Senate hearing focused on child safety online, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg offered an apology to parents who claimed Instagram contributed to child suicide and exploitation.
In recent years, the company has introduced a range of features and opt-in restrictions designed specifically for teen users, including parental controls, but these measures have so far been inconsistently enforced.
Naomi Gleit, head of product at Meta, said efforts are underway to consolidate both new and existing tools into a more unified package.
The rollout won’t be immediate: New users under the age of 18 will be automatically assigned to a teen account when they sign up, but current teen users may not see the change right away, and many individuals around the world won’t move over to a teen account until next year, according to a Meta fact sheet.
In addition to newly established privacy restrictions, these accounts will have the strictest content settings, limiting access to potentially sensitive content from accounts they don’t follow.
#Meta Expanded privacy and parental controls #Instagram The major overhaul of banning accounts for users under the age of 18 was aimed at addressing growing concerns about negative effects. #socialmedia.
read: pic.twitter.com/vp30UEYW3i
— NDTV Profit (@NDTVProfitIndia) September 18, 2024
Additionally, these accounts will have a hidden words feature enabled, which will automatically filter offensive words and phrases from the comments and direct messages they receive.
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