Instagram, like some other social media apps, requires you to be at least 13 years old before you can sign up. Even with that limitation, it's not hard for people even younger than 13 to sign up. While social media can be a fun place, it can also be very dangerous for younger people.
To help enhance child safety on the platform, Instagram is implementing significant changes to its algorithm. The target of these changes is to keep accounts that feature children away from the feeds of people who might potentially be a danger to children. In Instagram's own words, “potentially suspicious adults”. Let's talk about this in detail.
Instagram Will Keep Pages With Children Away From Potential Predators
When young teenagers open accounts on social media platforms like Instagram, they're doing it to connect with friends and new people, follow their interests, and simply have fun. What they're not hoping to do is be accessible to people who might have nothing but nefarious intentions in mind. Unfortunately, younger users may still fall right onto the pages of people like that, which is a big safety issue.
IG knows that, especially after a major lawsuit a few years ago, centered around child safety. Many of its users are close to the minimum age of 13 (and the platform now has Teen Accounts for them). Instagram only allows accounts for younger people when it is explicitly stated that a parent is managing it. The platform has a responsibility to keep young users safe, and with a new algorithm change, it is taking a big step.
The new algorithm centers around accounts managed by adults, but featuring images of children. The following changes will be set into motion to improve safety for younger users:
- Such pages will no longer be recommended to potentially suspicious adults
- It'll be harder for suspicious adults to find these accounts in Search
- Posts from suspicious adults will automatically be hidden
One criterion to determine a suspicious adult will be adult accounts that teenagers have blocked.
All of This Is in Addition to Robust Safety Features Available for Instagram's Teen Accounts
While Instagram is trying to protect accounts with children who are too young for the platform, it already has protections in place for teenagers who are at least 13 years old but still at risk. These safety features are all part of Teen Accounts, which were introduced in September of last year. As of last month, every country with IG now has access to Teen Accounts, and Meta has expanded them to its other platforms.
Teen Accounts come with some safety features that regular accounts don't have, and many of them are switched on by default. Here are a few of the restrictions on these accounts:
- Accounts under 16 can't start a Live without parental permission.
- Accounts under 16 will need parental permission to make any restrictions more lenient.
- Teen accounts can select the topics they'd like to be recommended.
- Teen accounts are private by default.
- Teens will see a new Block and Report option in DMs.
- The Location Notice will inform younger users of when the person they're chatting with is in a different country.
