Meta has announced the introduction of Instagram ‘teen accounts’ with safeguards that limit the content under 18s can view and which users can contact them. It follows pledges from state and federal governments to make social media safer for young people.
Lisa Given, Professor of Information Sciences
“Meta today announced new ‘teen accounts’ for Instagram users under the age of 18, which will be implemented in Australia, Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom within the next 60 days.
“These accounts will provide more parental control over their children’s use of these accounts, including the ability to block children’s use at night and to see what accounts are messaging with their children.
“Privacy settings will be the default for teen accounts, while sensitive content restrictions and filtering out of offensive words and phrases.
“Account holders under 16 will require parental permission to change these default settings. While these controls may be welcomed by some, the onus will continue to be on parents to monitor content and provide support to teens in navigating content safely, rather than Meta implementing new controls to eliminate harmful content at source, to protect all users.
“For example, Instagram explains that their Sensitive Content Control applies to some content that goes against their recommendation guidelines, but does not apply to content that goes against their community guidelines. Also, content that is limited through Sensitive Content Control is for content from accounts a person doesn’t follow, so content from accounts that are followed remains visible.
“The new ‘teen accounts’ also raise several privacy concerns for teens and other users.
For example, older teens may need independent access to some content, in cases where appropriate parental support is not available.
“Meta also announced it would use artificial intelligence tools to identify children who lie about their age, which may involve age estimation using biometrics (e.g. facial recognition technology) or using behavioural data (e.g. creating an age profile for users based on accounts followed or posts that are liked). However, these types of approaches are still being developed and tested, and they have known limitations, including the facial recognition of non-Caucasian users and inaccurate age estimation.”
Lisa Given is a Professor of Information Sciences at RMIT University. She is director of RMIT’s Centre for Human-AI Information Environments and the Social Change Enabling Impact Platform.
