Meta has launched Instagram Teen Accounts, a “new experience for teens, guided by parents”. However, the co-founders of the 36 Months campaign say the changes are not enough.
Teen Accounts have built-in protections that limit who can contact them and the content they see, and also provide new ways for teens to explore their interests. Meta said it will 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.
The key changes are:
- Private accounts: With default private accounts, teens 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.
- Messaging restrictions: Teens will be placed in the strictest messaging settings, so they can only be messaged by people they follow or are already connected to.
- Sensitive content restrictions: Teens will automatically be placed into the most restrictive setting of our sensitive content control, which limits the type of sensitive content (such as content that shows people fighting or promotes cosmetic procedures) teens see in places like Explore and Reels.
- Limited interactions: Teens can only be tagged or mentioned by people they follow. Meta will automatically turn on the most restrictive version of our anti-bullying feature, Hidden Words, so that offensive words and phrases will be filtered out of teens’ comments and DM requests.
- Time limit reminders: Teens will get notifications telling them to leave the app after 60 minutes each day.
- Sleep mode enabled: Sleep mode will be turned on between 10 PM and 7 AM, which will mute notifications overnight and send auto-replies to DMs.
Parents will also have new controls. For instance, they will be able to see who their child has been chatting with through DMs — though not what they’re saying. Parents can decide how much time their teen can spend on Instagram each day. Once a teen hits that limit, they’ll no longer be able to access the app. Parents can choose to block their teens from using Instagram at night, or specific time periods, with one easy button. Parents can view the age-appropriate topics their teen has chosen to see content from, based on their interests.
Meta will start placing teens who sign up for Instagram into Teen Accounts from today, and it will notify teens already using Instagram about these changes so it can begin moving them into Teen Accounts next week.
Meta said it plans 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. Teen Accounts will also come to other Meta platforms next year.
“Many months in the making, today we launch Teen Accounts on Instagram, which will automatically place teens into built-in protections and reassure parents that teens are having safe experiences on our app,” said Will Easton, Meta managing director, Australia.
“Instagram Teen Account protections are designed to address the biggest concerns of parents, including who their teens are interacting with online, the content they’re seeing, and whether their time is being well spent.
“Some of the new features to start rolling out will include daily time limits, private accounts, stricter messaging restrictions, sensitive content restrictions and sleep mode. While Teen Accounts put new protections in place automatically, many parents want to be more involved in their teen’s experiences, so we’re also adding updates to our supervision feature.
“This new experience, guided by parents, will help many feel more controlled and confident regarding their teenager’s activity on Instagram. We know parents want to feel confident that their teens can use social media to connect with their friends and explore their interests, without having to worry about unsafe or inappropriate experiences.”
However, Nova Star Michael ‘Wippa’ Wipfli and production company CEO Rob Galluzzo, co-founders of the 36 Months campaign, believe that the changes don’t go far enough.
“It seems Meta has heard this plea and taken some positive steps,” said Wippa. “But we don’t want a watered-down execution on what should be a courageous course of action from our elected officials.
“The minimum age for social media citizenship must be 16. It really is a matter of national health. Australia can lead the world on this issue and safeguard the digital future of all young Australians.”
Rising social media use has been linked to mental health issues, cyberbullying, anxiety, depression, self-harm and suicide in Australian teenagers.
Galluzzo says, “It seems Meta has heard this plea and taken some positive steps,” he says. “Ideally, the government shouldn’t have to step in and make commitments about legislating changes to the minimum age.
“Ideally, social media platforms should have led the way on this. I think they missed an opportunity here to build trust with parents.”
“36 Months has helped bring social media out of cyber-space and into a national conversation about health. It’s given a voice to parents.”
Both say 36 Months isn’t against big-tech or even anti-social media.
“We’re simply for healthy teen development,’ added Wippa. “The minefield of social media has been one of the biggest things impacting the mental health of young Australians.”
