Instagram Enhances Teen Privacy and Parental Control Features

Business News: Instagram Enhances Teen Privacy and Parental Control Features

Instagram is making significant changes to its platform to offer enhanced privacy protections for teenagers, while giving parents greater control over their children’s accounts. Starting on Tuesday, the platform will introduce “teen accounts” in the UK, US, Canada, and Australia.

These accounts will come with default privacy settings for users under 18, such as preventing non-followers from viewing their content and requiring approval for new followers. However, teenagers aged 13 to 15 will only be able to modify their settings with a parent or guardian’s involvement.

This move comes amid increasing pressure on social media platforms to create safer environments for young users. Concerns have been raised globally about the potential harm these platforms can cause to young people, leading to a push for more stringent safety measures. The UK children’s charity, NSPCC, welcomed Instagram’s updates as a positive step but stressed that real safety requires proactive efforts to prevent harmful content and abuse from spreading on the platform.

Meta, Instagram’s parent company, described the changes as a “new experience for teens, guided by parents.” It aims to provide peace of mind for parents by ensuring that teens are protected with appropriate safeguards. However, there are lingering concerns about how effectively these changes will be enforced. Ian Russell, whose daughter Molly died by suicide after viewing harmful content on Instagram, highlighted the importance of seeing how well the new policy works in practice.

The platform will enforce several changes for teens between 13 and 15, including stricter controls on sensitive content and muting notifications during nighttime hours. Accounts will also default to private, making it necessary for teens to manually accept new followers. Parents who supervise their children’s accounts will be able to see who they interact with but will not be able to view the content of private messages.

Instagram’s changes reflect the growing focus on ensuring children’s safety online. In some regions, like Australia, the government is considering stricter measures, including a potential ban on social media for children under certain ages. As social media platforms introduce new parental controls, experts like Paolo Pescatore believe this is an essential step toward improving children’s digital well-being. However, the challenge remains for parents to actively use these controls and for platforms to ensure effective enforcement.

While Instagram has already introduced over 50 tools to keep teens safe, including family centers and supervision features, questions remain about why harmful content continues to reach young users despite these protections. An Ofcom study earlier this year revealed that every child it spoke to had encountered violent material online, with Instagram, WhatsApp, and Snapchat being the most common platforms cited. With the UK’s Online Safety Act requiring platforms to remove illegal and harmful content, the effectiveness of Instagram’s latest measures will be closely scrutinized as these rules gradually take effect, with full implementation expected by 2025.

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