Meta Introduces Instagram Teen Accounts

Meta is introducing Instagram Teen Accounts, a new experience for teens, guided by parents. Teen Accounts have built-in protections which limit who can contact them and the content they see, and also provide new ways for teens to explore their interests. It automatically place teens into Teen Accounts, and teens under 16 will need a parent’s permission to change any of these settings to be less strict.

This new experience is designed to better support parents, and give them peace of mind that their teens are safe with the right protections in place. Teens will also get access to a new feature, made just for them, that lets them select topics they want to see more of in Explore and their recommendations so they can focus on the fun, positive content they love.

The new Teen Account protections are designed to address parents’ biggest concerns, including who their teens are talking to online, the content they’re seeing and whether their time is being well spent.

Some of the highlights of the Teen Account are:

With default private accounts, teens need to accept new followers and people who don’t follow them can’t see their content or interact with them. This applies to all teens under 16 (including those already on Instagram and those signing up) and teens under 18 when they sign up for the app.

Teens will be placed in the strictest messaging settings, so they can only be messaged by people they follow or are already connected to.

Teens will automatically be placed into the most restrictive setting of our sensitive content control, which limits the type of sensitive content (such as content that shows people fighting or promotes cosmetic procedures) teens see in places like Explore and Reels.

Teens can only be tagged or mentioned by people they follow. We’ll also automatically turn on the most restrictive version of our anti-bullying feature, Hidden Words, so that offensive words and phrases will be filtered out of teens’ comments and DM requests.

Teens will get notifications telling them to leave the app after 60 minutes each day.

Sleep mode will be turned on between 10 PM and 7 AM, which will mute notifications overnight and send auto-replies to DMs.

September 18, 2024