Instagram users who are under the age of 16 will soon need permission from a parent or guardian to go live on the app or to receive some direct messages.
Meta — Instagram's parent company — announced Tuesday that these new built-in restrictions are intended to create a more "age-appropriate experience" for teens using the platform and give parents more control over what content their child is exposed to.
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"We know parents are worried about strangers contacting their teens – or teens receiving unwanted contact," Meta said in a statement. "In addition to the existing built-in protections offered by Teen Accounts, we’re adding new restrictions for Instagram Live and unwanted images in DMs."
"With these changes, teens under 16 will be prohibited from going Live unless their parents give them permission to do so," the company added. "We’ll also require teens under 16 to get parental permission to turn off our feature that blurs images containing suspected nudity in DMs. We’ll make these updates available in the next couple of months."
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Instagram already automatically places teens into what the company refers to as "Teen Accounts," which require users under 16 to get a parent's permission if they wish to change any of the built-in protection settings. Meta said since making those changes, 97% of teens aged 13-15 have kept those built-in restrictions.
"We want to make it easier for parents to have peace of mind when it comes to their teens’ experiences across Meta’s apps, so today, we’ll begin making Teen Accounts available on Facebook and Messenger," the Silicon Valley-based company said. "Teen Accounts on Facebook and Messenger will offer similar, automatic protections to limit inappropriate content and unwanted contact, as well as ways to ensure teens’ time is well spent."
Meta said it will begin Rolling out Facebook and Messenger Teen Accounts in the U.S., the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada, before expanding to other regions.
