Initially, teen accounts will apply to new teens who sign up. (Representative)
Perth:
As Australia and other countries debate the merits of banning children under 14 from social media, Meta has announced a major “reinterpretation” of teens’ experience with Instagram.
These new “Teen Accounts” will be set to private by default, have the maximum content and message restrictions possible, pause notifications overnight, and add new ways for teens to indicate their content preferences.
Importantly, for children under 16, changing these default settings now requires parental consent.
This move, touted as giving parents ‘peace of mind’, is a welcome one – but parents and guardians should use it to talk to their children about online spaces.
What’s different about teen accounts? Teen accounts are a combination of new features and a repackaging of some tools that already exist but haven’t yet had the visibility or adoption that Meta would have preferred.
Bringing these incremental changes together under the Teen Accounts umbrella should make these changes more visible to teens and caregivers.
Among the key features: 1. Accounts under 18 will be set to private by default, and under 16s can only change this setting with parental consent. 2. Teens can only receive messages from people they are already following or related to 3. Content restrictions and blocking of offensive words in comments and posts will be set to the maximum possible setting 4. Instagram notifications will be turned off between 10 p.m. 7am 5. teens are reminded to leave Instagram after 60 minutes of use on a given day.
Some of these tools are more useful than others. A reminder to leave Instagram after 60 minutes, which teens can simply click past, sets the bar quite low in terms of time management.
But default account settings are important. They can really shape the user experience of a platform. Teens who have a private account by default and have security around content and messaging set to the strongest settings will significantly shape their time on Instagram.
Preventing those under 16 from changing these settings without parental or guardian consent is the biggest change, and really sets the teen Instagram experience apart from the adult experience.
Most of these changes are focused on safety and age-appropriate experiences. But it’s a positive step for Meta to also include new ways for teens to indicate what content they actually prefer, rather than just relying on algorithms to infer these preferences.
Should parents and guardians do anything? When promoting Teen Accounts, head of Instagram Adam Mosseri emphasized that the change is intended to give parents “peace of mind.” No explicit parental intervention is required for these changes to occur.
“I’m a father, and this is a significant change on Instagram and one that I’m personally very proud of,” Mosseri said. This is part of a longer-term strategy to position Mosseri as a prominent parental voice to increase his perceived credibility in this area.
Parents or guardians will have to use their own accounts for “monitoring” if they want to know what teens are doing on Instagram, or if they want to have access to more granular controls. These include setting personal time limits, viewing a summary of a teen’s activity, or changing the default settings.
The real opportunity for parents here is to view these changes as an opportunity to discuss with their children how they use Instagram and other social media platforms.
Whatever safety measures are in place, it is essential that parents build and maintain a sense of openness and trust, so that young people can turn to them with questions and share difficulties and challenges they encounter online.
Meta has said that the shift to teen accounts will reduce the level of inappropriate content teens encounter, but that can never be absolute.
These changes minimize risks, but do not eliminate them. Ensuring that young people have someone to turn to if they see, hear or experience something that is inappropriate or makes them feel uncomfortable will always be incredibly important. That’s real peace of mind.
Can’t teenagers still lie about their age? Initially, teen accounts will apply to new teens who sign up. The changes will also roll out to existing teen users whose date of birth Instagram has already registered.
Mosseri and Antigone Davis, Meta’s global head of security, have both said over time that Instagram is rolling out new tools that will identify teens using Instagram even if they haven’t entered an accurate date of birth. These tools are not yet active, but should appear next year.
This is a welcome change if it proves accurate. However, the effectiveness of inferring or estimating age remains to be proven.
The bigger picture Teen Accounts are launching this week in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. It may take up to 60 days to reach all users in those countries. Users in the rest of the world are expected to get teen accounts in January 2025.
For a long time, Instagram hasn’t done enough to represent the interests of younger users. Child rights advocates have particularly endorsed teen accounts as a significant positive change in young people’s experiences and safety on Instagram.
Still, it is uncertain whether Meta has done enough to address pressure in Australia and elsewhere to ban young people (under 14 or under 16, depending on the proposal) from all social media.
Teen accounts are clearly a meaningful step in the right direction, but it’s worth remembering that it took Instagram fourteen years to get to this point. That’s too long.
Ultimately, these changes should serve any platform open to kids and teens to ensure they provide age-appropriate experiences. Young users can benefit greatly from being online, but we need to minimize the risks.
In the meantime, if these changes open the door for parents and guardians to talk to young people about their online experiences, that’s a win. (The conversation)
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)