Instagram Takes ‘Protect Your Peace’ to the Next Level by Creating Teen-Friendly Accounts

Those who’ve been lobbying for Instagram to introduce higher rules for teens could be pleased to know that the social media platform has taken motion. The Meta-owned brand has over a billion energetic accounts and has created one for teens. Instagram Teen accounts are designed for teens aged 13 to 17 and are meant to be a safer platform for them to engage with social media. Starting today, all latest and existing account holders under the age of 18 might be transitioned to a teen account.

Anyone under 16 will need parental or guardian consent to open an account, and there are regulated supervision tools available. However, children aged 16 and over can adjust the settings themselves. While it is a thoughtful feature, there may be a risk that teenagers will lie about their age when opening accounts.

“We know that some teens will try to lie about their age to get around these protections,” Antigone Davis, Meta’s global head of security, told The Verge. “So we’re going to be building new capabilities to verify teens’ ages.” One way they’ll try this is by using AI to search for clues that an account holder is under 18.

Other features include automatic privatization of adlescent accounts. Account holders is not going to have the opportunity to receive messages from people they don’t follow or should not connected to.

“It really standardizes a lot of the work we’ve done, simplifies it, and makes it available to all teens,” Davis said. “It basically provides a set of safeguards that are already in place and already populated.”

There can also be the issue of teens being exposed to inappropriate content via Explore. The latest platform addresses this issue with sensitive content controls that be sure that content that appears on Explore and Reels has limited sensitive content. Additionally, the feature allows teens to select topics that interest them, so that they see more of that content on Explore. Offensive words and phrases might be filtered out in comment sections and DM requests via the hidden words feature.

Some studies show social media use in adolescence is related to poor sleep quality, depression, anxiety and low self-esteem. Meta tries to solve the sleep problem by adding a time management tool like Sleep Mode, which silences notifications at night and sets each day limits and reminders.