Instagram has announced a slew of new features to ensure teens have a safe and positive experience on the photo and video sharing platform. Part of the new features includes a new artificial intelligence and machine learning technology to help determine a users’ real age, providing parents and teens with new resources about online safety, and making it hard for teens and adults to interact on the platform.
New resources for Parents and Teens
In partnership with safety experts, Instagram is rolling out a new Parents Guide detailing the latest safety tools and privacy settings, plus more tips on online safety. The new guide is an extension to the existing one, available in four EU countries, and will roll out to more countries.
New technology to determine users’ real age
Instagram is working om new artificial intelligence and machine learning technology to help the platform determine the real age of users to ensure teen safety. Instagram has a strict policy for underage users and only allows teens above 13 years to join the platform.
However, like other social media platforms, the company is struggling to verify user age. Therefore, technology is seen as key to helping determine the real age of a user to prevent underage kids from joining the platform.
Restricting Interaction between teens and adults
The app plans to stop adults from sending DMs to teens aged 18 and below who don’t follow them. If you try to message a teen who doesn’t follow you, Instagram will notify you that DM’ing them isn’t an option.
It will also begin to make it harder for adults “exhibiting potentially suspicious behaviour” to find and interact with teens. They plan to do so in different ways.
Like preventing such adults from discovering teen content in Reels and explore, hiding teen accounts in ‘Suggested Users’, and even automatically hiding their comments on public posts by teens.
Advising Teens on Instagram Safety
Instagram will also encourage teens to go private by educating them on the difference between a private and a public account. It will also give teens an option to select between a private and public account on signup.
They will also send teens safety notices to be cautious while interacting with adults they’re already connected to on the platform.
TikTok has been at the forefront of protecting its underage users after it was fined in the US in two separate cases over how it handled such users in the past.
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