Instagram Tightens Safety Measures for Teens

With the demands for child internet safety growing higher each day, Instagram has decided to change the way its platform is set up for minors. Expected to be enacted within the month, these policies ensure that teenagers aren’t vulnerable to harmful content and behaviors online. 

“It is easy to access content online that could be dangerous to us,” Mariakarla Suarez, senior, states. “I’m happy to see that steps are being taken to solve it.”

Instagram’s “Teen Accounts” initiative aims to enhance safety for users under 18 by automatically setting their accounts to private, including active accounts. Additionally, teens won’t receive notifications between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m., and stricter direct message regulations will prevent them from getting messages from accounts they don’t follow. The initiative also includes stronger guidelines on sensitive content to further protect younger users.

For those 16 and under, parents are granted access to their child’s account through the parent supervision tool. This tool not only includes the feature for adults to see the minor’s time spent on Instagram but can also see their recent messages as well as what content the child has been consuming the most of.

Some are wondering whether or not teenagers can change their settings themselves — they can. Instagram stated that account holders 16 or 17 could make their account public and change other default settings by themselves. However, teens under 16 will need a parent’s permission over sleep mode, privacy settings, and other restrictions.

With Instagram pushing to implement these features soon, many are questioning whether these new implementations would work as minors could lie about their birthday. To combat this, Instagram has requested that accounts under 18 verify their age in numerous ways, such as submitting a picture of an ID or giving a video selfie for age-estimation analysis. 

Minors impacted by the regulations are advocating against it, stating that having a public account does not affect their safety. However, a study conducted by Pew Research Center shows that 41% of teens with high social media use rate their overall mental health as poor. 

“Though I agree with some features, I think it’s too much,” Suarez states. “I understand that it’s for safety, but having my parents monitor my Instagram feels overbearing.”

Instagram said it will begin implementing these restrictions on the new accounts being made this week. For the following two months, Instagram has disclosed that they will be committing to the changes for existing teen accounts in the U.S., Canada, Britain, and Australia. Minors in other countries can begin to see these changes being implemented in the first month of 2025.