Instagram has launched new “teen accounts” for those under 18, aiming to safeguard teens from unwanted contact and inappropriate content.
But the new initiative has received some mixed reviews, and falls short of its intended goal, local groups and teens say.
Instagram made the move as it faced dozens of lawsuits and accusations that the platform is harming the mental health of young people.
The new program places anyone under age 18 in a restrictive teen account, and those under 18 already on the platform were migrated to a teen account. Teen accounts also became private by default and prohibit teens from being contacted by anyone they do not follow or are not connected to.
Sensitive content, like cosmetic procedures and violence, also has been limited. Teen users now receive notifications if they are on the app for more than 60 minutes, and sleep mode is automatically enabled between the hours of 10 p.m. and 7 a.m.
Instagram also added a “supervision feature,” which allows parents to see who teens are chatting with and what topics they’re scanning, sets daily time limits, and blocks use during certain times. Users 16 or older can turn those features off, but children under 16 need permission from a parent to do so.
But some local critics say the new guidelines are not good enough and are too easy to work around.
“While Meta’s announcement is increasing awareness of social media’s harms for young people, the new controls are ultimately problematic because they give parents a false sense of security,” said Liza Forbes, co-founder of IRL, a Rye-based non-profit focused on healthy tech habits. “Social media is designed to be addictive and distracting; these new Meta controls are smoke and mirrors.”
Acknowledging it is difficult to verify user’s ages, Instagram has said it is trying to do a better job of doing so. The company is testing new features and is partnering with Yoti, a company that offers privacy-preserving ways to verify age.
Local teens said that while those features will be helpful, they still think predators will find a way to work around them, particularly because fake accounts do such a good job of looking real.
“Sometimes there could be a creepy 50-year-old guy behind the screen using a profile picture of a young pretty girl to seem approachable,” said one local teen, who asked not to be identified. “Then they get a good amount of followers and it seems like a legit account, so it doesn’t raise any red flags.”
Julia Herpel, the mother of two teen Instagram users, said her children’s accounts, “are private anyway, so these changes don’t make much of a difference.” Other teens said it is still easy to “fake your age” and create false “supervisor accounts.”
Whether the new safety features reduce the amount of predatory behavior on the app remains to be seen. Forbes said parents are safer delaying social media use altogether.
Instagram’s parent company, Meta, made headlines this week when they announced another change coming to social media — an end to fact checking.
