Meta launches Instagram Teen Accounts, more platforms planned

This week Meta announced the launch of Teens Accounts for Instagram.
Teen Accounts have built-in protections which limit who can contact them and the content they see.
Meta plans to roll out this new feature in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia in a couple of months, EU later this year, and the rest of the world in early 2025.

Meta has this week announced that it is launching Teen Accounts for Instagram. It is part of the tech giant’s latest efforts to better safeguard younger users on its platform, with Teen Accounts expected to be rolled out on other Meta-owned platforms over the coming months on the back of this Instagram version.

The well being of teens and children on social media is an issue that Meta has been accused of not doing enough about, with studies and reports in recent years showcasing how social media can trigger depression in users, as well as feelings of inadequacy, not to mention issues as related to paedophilia or sexually explicit content being directed at children.

As such, it will be interesting to see whether the rollout of Teen Accounts on Instagram will go some ways to addressing such problems.

In terms of how it these accounts will work, Meta explains in a blog post that this new feature will, “have built-in protections which limit who can contact them and the content they see, and also provide new ways for teens to explore their interests. We’ll automatically place teens into Teen Accounts, and teens under 16 will need a parent’s permission to change any of these settings to be less strict.”

“This new experience is designed to better support parents, and give them peace of mind that their teens are safe with the right protections in place. Teens will also get access to a new feature, made just for them, that lets them select topics they want to see more of in Explore and their recommendations so they can focus on the fun, positive content they love,” it added.

Some of the aforementioned controls that will be out in place with Teens accounts include default private accounts, which means teens will need to accept new followers and people who don’t follow them can’t see their content or interact with them. “This applies to all teens under 16 (including those already on Instagram and those signing up) and teens under 18 when they sign up for the app,” Meta added for clarification.

Other controls are teens only being able to only be messaged by people they follow or are already connected to; being automatically placed into the most restrictive setting of Instagram’s sensitive content control; along with only being tagged or mentioned by people they follow, getting notifications to leave the app after 60 minutes each day; and a sleep mode which will mute notifications be turned between 22:00 and 7:00.

In terms of the actual rollout of this new set of controls, Meta says it will, “start placing teens who sign up for Instagram into Teen Accounts, and we’ll notify teens already using Instagram about these changes so we can begin moving them into Teen Accounts next week.”

“We plan to place teens into Teen Accounts within 60 days in the US, UK, Canada and Australia, and to start placing them in Teen Accounts in the European Union later this year. Teens around the world will start to get Teen Accounts in January. We’ll also bring Teen Accounts to other Meta platforms next year,” it concluded.