Meta is adding new safety features to Instagram for adult accounts that prominently feature children.
These include adults who regularly share photos and videos of their children, and adults – such as parents or talent managers – who run accounts that represent teens or children under 13.
While users need to be at least 13 to use Instagram, adults are able to run accounts that represent younger children if it is clear in the account biography that adults are managing the account.
While Meta contends that many of these accounts are harmless, it does admit that many people may abuse them, leaving sexualised comments or requesting sexual images from these accounts.
These accounts will therefore receive some of the automatic account protections given to teen accounts, including stricter messaging settings, and the filtering of offensive comments.
Meta will also try to weed out suspicious adults who have had their accounts blocked by teen accounts from accessing these child-featuring accounts.
These come in conjunction with some updates to new safety measures for teen accounts.
Teen accounts will now feature more context on direct messages that will provide them with information about the accounts they are interacting with, and help them spot potential spammers.
Teens will see new options to see safety tips and block unwanted accounts, as well as information on when a user joined the app.
Meta has also launched a new block and report option on DMs, so that people can take both actions together in a combined click, making the process easier.
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These new features follow Meta’s other safety notices and tools rolled out over the past couple of months. In June, Meta introduced location notices to Instagram DMs, which will alert users if the accounts they are messaging are in a different country. This feature is meant to protect people from potential sextortion scammers who often misrepresent their location.
Meta also rolled out a nudity protection feature globally, which blurs potentially nude images, and prompts users to think twice before forwarding any suspected nude images.
Meta said that earlier this year, its teams removed nearly 135,000 Instagram accounts for leaving sexualised comments or requesting sexual images from adult managed accounts featuring children. It also removed an additional 500,000 Facebook and Instagram accounts that were linked to those accounts.





