Meta introduces Teen Accounts on Instagram for added security; updates supervision too

On Tuesday, Meta Platforms unveiled “Instagram Teen Accounts” to provide extra protection to teens on the social media platform.

Meta-owned Instagram will automatically place teens into Teen Accounts, and children under 16 years of age will require a parent’s permission to change any of these settings to be less strict.

What are the Changes?

Meta noted that Teen Accounts have built-in protections that limit who can contact the children and the content they see. With default private accounts, teens need to accept new followers and people who do not follow them cannot see their content or interact with them.

This will also apply to all teens under 16 (including those already on Instagram and those signing up) and teens under 18 when they sign up for the app.

Teens will automatically be placed into the most restrictive setting of the company’s sensitive content control, which limits the type of sensitive content (such as people fighting or promoting cosmetic procedures) teens see in places like Explore and Reels, Meta added.

The company will also turn on the most restrictive version of its anti-bullying feature, Hidden Words, so that offensive words and phrases will be filtered out of teens’ comments and direct message (DM) requests.

The tech giant has set time limit reminders, as teens will get notifications to leave the app after 60 minutes each day.

Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, also shared the update in a reel (below).

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A post shared by Adam Mosseri (@mosseri)

Any updates to Parental Supervision?

Meta also introduced updates to supervision features for parents or guardians. These include:

1. While parents cannot read their teen’s messages, now they will be able to see who their children have messaged in the past seven days.

2. Parents can decide how much time their child can spend on Instagram each day, and can block their teens from using the app for particular time periods.

3. Parents can also view the age-appropriate topics their children have chosen to see content from, based on their interests.

What if the Teens Lie?

Meta said teens may lie about their age, so the company is requiring them to verify their age in more places, such as if they attempt to use a new account with an adult birthday.

The company is also building a technology to proactively find accounts belonging to teens, even if the account lists an adult birthday.

Meta noted that it will start testing this change in the U.S. early next year.

Only Instagram or any other platform impacted?

Meta said it will also bring Teen Accounts to other Meta platforms next year.

When will the Changes Kick in?

Meta said it will start placing teens who sign up for Instagram into Teen Accounts, and it will notify teens already using Instagram about the changes so it can start moving them into Teen Accounts next week.

The company plans to place teens into Teen Accounts within 60 days in the U.S., the U.K., Canada and Australia, and to start placing them in Teen Accounts in the EU later this year. Teens globally will start to get Teen Accounts in January.