(TheConservativeTimes.org) – Instagram has announced the launch of “teen accounts” which will be designed specifically for teenage users and will come with a set of built-in limitations and privacy protections.
The accounts will be automatic for all Instagram users that are under the age of eighteen, which includes those that already use the app and those who will sign up for the app. Instead, users that are under sixteen years old will need a parent’s permission to change their account settings as well.
The changes were announced during a live interview on Good Morning America with Adam Mosseri where he said, “They’re an automatic set of protections for teens that try to proactively address the top concerns that we’ve heard from parents about teens online.”
He continued, “Things like who can contact them, what content they see and how much time they spend on their device … all without requiring any involvement from the parent.”
Mosseri said that these “teen accounts” will be rolled out starting Tuesday with new users who are signing up for the app and those with existing accounts will have sixty days to switch their account to a teen account model.
This by default will also place teen users under a private account, and they will need a parent’s permission to change it to a public account. Teens will also only be able to message people they are already connected to or follow.
Parents will also have a tool that gives them the power to see who their teen has been messaging recently. In order to limit the amount of time on Instagram, teen accounts will also be placed on “sleep mode” between ten at night and seven in the morning.
This will help to ensure that teens are safer on the app and will prevent teens from being able to lie about their age through required age verification in the case that they try to change their birthday. It also won’t allow new accounts with a different birthday from the same device.
The vice president and global head of safety for Meta, Antigone Davis, said that they were working to ensure safety for teens and to prevent the issue of them lying about their age to get into less restricted content.
Copyright 2024, TheConservativeTimes.org
