Meta is introducing Teen Accounts on Instagram so younger users can use the platform more safely. Anyone under 16 will automatically be moved to a teen account and if these users want to remove restrictions, they"ll have to connect with their parent who can then reduce the strictness of the account. The unveiling of stricter Teen Accounts comes just months after The Wall Street Journal published finding that teens were being recommended sexual videos by Instagram.
Meta says that Teen Accounts will have built-in protections that limit who can make contact. These accounts will also be limited in terms of which content they can see. It"s not all restrictions, though, as Meta will add new ways for teens to explore their interests.
One of the new ways teens can find content is by selecting topics they"re interested in, the items chosen will appear more frequently in the Explore tab and their recommendations "so they can focus on the fun, positive content they love." Some tags shown off by Meta include Animals & Pets, Food & Drink, Soccer, Cooking, Sports, Technology, and more.
The new restrictions that will be faced by children are as follows:
- Private accounts: With default private accounts, teens need to accept new followers and people who don’t follow them can’t see their content or interact with them.
- Messaging restrictions: Teens will be placed in the strictest messaging settings, so they can only be messaged by people they follow or are already connected to.
- Sensitive content restrictions: Teens will automatically be placed into 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) 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 will be filtered out of teens’ comments and DM requests.
- Time limit reminders: Teens will get notifications telling them to leave the app after 60 minutes each day.
- Sleep mode enabled: Sleep mode will be turned on between 10 PM and 7 AM, which will mute notifications overnight and send auto-replies to DMs.
With these controls, parents will be able to ensure kids don"t talk to strangers, aren"t exposed to inappropriate content, and are not wasting their time on Instagram endlessly scrolling and neglecting sleep.
In addition to the controls above, Meta will also start allowing parents to get insights into who their children are talking to (but not chat logs), they"ll be able to set time limits, they be able to block teens from Instagram at certain times, and parents will be able to see what topics kids are looking at.
Meta will put teens into Teen Accounts within 60 days in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia and then in the European Union later this year. Teens around the world will get Teen Accounts in January. The company also plans to bring Teen Accounts to its other platforms next year.