Instagram unveils tools to keep teens safe, including parental controls

Instagram on Tuesday unveiled new features it says will make its site safer for teens.

Instagram chief Adam Mosseri said in a blog post that among the measures, the popular photo-sharing service will implement tools to help users take breaks or look at new topics if they stay on one thing for too long. are doing.

The platform, owned by Meta Platform Inc., formerly known as Facebook Inc., will also block users from tagging or mentioning teens who don’t follow them. This will give parents more control over how long their kids use the app. And in January, it will allow all users to bulk-delete their content, including photos, videos, likes and comments.

The rollout comes a day before Mr Mosseri will testify before Congress for the first time. Mr Mosseri, who has overseen Instagram for three years, will appear before the Senate Consumer Protection Subcommittee on Wednesday to answer questions about the app’s impact on young users.

An article published in The Wall Street Journal’s Facebook Files series in September revealed that internal research found Instagram to be harmful to a large percentage of young users, especially teenage girls with body-image concerns. . Its parent company disputed the characterization of the findings.

Mr Mosseri said in a blog post that the steps, unveiled on Tuesday, should “keep the youth even more secure.”

However, many features are “opt-in” – meaning they are turned off until users turn them on. It “puts on teen users and potentially their parents to engage in this form of self-regulation,” said Brooke Erin Duffy, an associate professor in the Department of Communications at Cornell University. “It removes the responsibility from the platform.”

taking a break

The Take a Break feature, which alerts users when they are on Instagram for a predetermined amount of time, became available on Tuesday in the US, UK, Australia, Canada, Ireland and New Zealand. It is available to all users but has been designed with teenagers in mind. Currently, teenagers have to turn it on. And when they get a warning, they can turn it off and go back to scrolling if they want.

Instagram spokeswoman Liza Crenshaw said Instagram would suggest teens activate the Take a Break reminder after using the app for 20 minutes. After this, users can set reminders for 10, 20 or 30 minutes. Preliminary test results showed that once teens set reminders, more than 90% keep them on, Mr. Mosseri said in a blog post.

Instagram’s parental controls, designed to let parents see how long their kids use the app and set time limits, will also be opt-in when they become available this March. Teen users would have to provide access to their parents, Ms Crenshaw said, this would preserve the autonomy of teens and ensure their safety.

In July, Instagram introduced a sensitive-content control—effectively a knob that determines how much sensitive content users see, such as “sexually suggestive” posts, in the Explore tab. The options are “Allow,” “Limit,” or “Limit” and more.”

Mr Mosseri said Instagram is exploring whether to expand the options for search, hashtags, reel and suggested accounts. “It will be more difficult for teens to be exposed to potentially harmful or sensitive content,” he said in the blog post.

Teenager, by default, has the sensitive-content control set to “limit”. Ms Crenshaw said Instagram is currently deciding whether or not “Limit Even More” will one day be the default. Older users can also set their own control preferences.

“We’re discovering more dire defaults in the new year than what teens typically do,” she said. Some of the new teen protections announced Tuesday—like letting unfollowed accounts not to mention them—will be turned on automatically for younger users, and there will be an option available for older users as well.

According to Mr Mosseri’s blog post, Instagram is developing another feature that “will draw people to other topics if they’ve been staying on one topic for a while”. Ms Crenshaw said the company has yet to decide whether “a while” will happen, and Instagram doesn’t know when it will launch the feature.

The product build-out announced on Tuesday is unlikely to ease the pressure facing Mr Mosseri on Wednesday.

Marsha Blackburn (R., Tenn.), a member of the Senate, said, “Meta is trying to deflect attention from its mistakes by using parental guides, timers, and content-control features.” Consumer Protection Subcommittee, in a statement. “It’s a hollow ‘product announcement’ in the dark of night that will do little to make its products safe for children and teens.”