Teenage users of Instagram will have new restrictions, and parents will have greater control over their children’s accounts, as Meta rolls out its new ‘teen accounts’.

The new rules will apply to new accounts, and will be rolled out across existing teen accounts over time.

The teen accounts will have built-in protections which limit who can contact them and the content they see, and will allow parents to restrict the apps, including restricting the times their children can access Instagram.

The rules come following several lawsuits levied against the tech giant, and follows the passing of the Online Safety Act which puts greater responsibility for the safety of vulnerable people, especially children, online.

Many of the controls seem to be directly in relation to global complaints.

In a US court case filed against Meta, the social media parent company was found to be purposefully engineering its platforms, including Facebook and Instagram, to addict young people. They were also found to “knowingly” allow underage users.

It also faced backlash from EU authorities over not ensuring child safety across its platforms, saying that Meta’s “algorithms, may stimulate behavioural addictions in children, as well as create so-called ‘rabbit-hole effects.'”

Default Controls

The new accounts include a number of protections meant to safeguard those under the age of 18, and give more confidence to parents.

All teen accounts will be private by default, meaning that teens must accept new followers and people who do not follow them cannot see their content, or interact with them.

Similarly, teens will only be able to be messaged, tagged, or mentioned by those they are already connected to or follow.

Teen accounts will also be automatically defaulted to the most restrictive sensitive content control, which limits the type of sensitive content they can see on the platform.

For comments and direct messages, Meta will employ the most restrictive version of their “anti-bullying” feature, which will hide offensive words and phrases.

Teen accounts will also feature a timer, that will alert teens when they have spent 60 minutes on the app, telling them to leave Instagram.

Sleep mode, which mutes notifications, will also be employed between 10 pm and 7 am.

Those under 16 years of age will only be allowed to change their settings with a parents’ permission.

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New Parental Controls

Meta is also adding a supervision feature, allowing parents to add more controls to their children’s accounts.

Parents will be able to see who their teens have messaged in the past week, set total daily time limits for their teen’s Instagram usage, and block teens from using the app at specific time periods.

Parents can even view the topics their teens have chosen to see content from.

Enforcing Teen Accounts

While the restrictions will be rolled out across teen accounts, Meta recognises that teens can lie about their age to access accounts.

The company says they are putting in more areas where teens will have to verify their age. Meta is also working on building technology to proactively find accounts belonging to teens.

“Given that parents today are grappling with the benefits and challenges of the internet and digital media for their teens, our association applauds Meta for launching Instagram Teen Accounts,” Yvonne Johnson, president of the National Parent Teacher Association in the US.

“With teens automatically placed in Teen Accounts and certain privacy settings turned on by default, this update demonstrates that Meta is taking steps to empower parents and deliver safer, more age-appropriate experiences on the platform.”