Settings for teen Instagram accounts will now be guided by the PG-13 guidelines followed for movies, Mehta said, but whether they will be effective is another matter, according to tech experts.
Users of teen accounts are still prohibited from viewing “sensitive content,” including messages that are sexually explicit or show physical violence, for example. These new rules will go further and discourage posts that contain profanity or risqué stunts, or anything else that “may encourage potentially harmful behavior,” Meta announced Tuesday.
The new rules will also ban teenage usersfrom the following accounts that constantly post age inappropriate content and see search results generated by cercontain words such as “blood” or “alcohol”. Teens will also be prohibited from opening links on Instagram that violate the platform's updated rules.
“Just as you might see indecent content or hear profanity in a PG-13 movie, teens may see similar content on Instagram from time to time—but we will continue to do everything we can to keep these occurrences as rare as possible,” the company said in a statement. blog post. “We understand that no system is perfect and strive to improve over time.”
Meta says it made the changes in an attempt to bring its own rules in line with the “independent standard” that parents are familiar with. The changes will begin rolling out to users in Canada, the US, the UK and Australia starting Tuesday, and Meta says the rollout will be completed by the end of 2025.
Instagram is launching new accounts for teens with improved parental controls and privacy features, but some parents say Meta still needs to do more to make the platform safe for young users.
Teen accounts that were first announced in September 2024 and apply to all users under the age of 18. already the default is set to private (meaning other users must request to follow these accounts and view their content), cannot receive private messages from strangers, and turns off notifications at night.
Since then, Meta has periodically increased restrictions on teen accounts, e.g. restricting children's ability to livestream or blurring nudityalthough the company says this is the most significant rule change since the teen account feature was first announced.
Teen accounts can't fix everything.
The added controls came “a little, really late,” according to Richard Lachman, a professor at the RTA School of Media at the University of Toronto.
“We're seeing some movement from the major platforms to implement things that, frankly, they could have done ten years ago,” Lachman said. Regulate content by filtering specific keywordsfor example, according to Lachman, not very advanced.
And while the new rules will apply to any users who enter a date of birth that indicates they are under 18, Lachman says it won't be difficult for children to find a way to bypass the controls at all.
While users can simply specify an age over 18 when creating accounts to get around the rules, Meta says they will use age prediction technology to try to catch teens using adult accounts.
Meta uses Artificial Intelligence Technology does this in part by analyzing the account's creation date and how the account interacts with content on the platform before imposing content restrictions on those accounts it suspects are teens in disguise. Meta also says it requires teens to verify their identity through a “video selfie or ID verification” if they try to change their birth date from under 18 to over 18.
But technology analyst Carmi Levy says how Meta predicts a user's age and how age-inappropriate content is weeded out is still quite opaque.
As Quebec considers restricting social media for children under 14, we are seeing other jurisdictions around the world introduce their own restrictions and concerns when it comes to protecting the privacy of minors.
“We haven't seen the full data from Meta that would give us a better idea of exactly how these tools work, or whether they work at all,” Levy said. “So we'll have to [take] they keep their word.”
Research has shown that teen account settings set in the past year were not always successful at filtering out unsafe messages, including eating disorder content. One recent study Heat, an initiative that advocates for children's online safety, found that nearly half of teen Instagram users had been exposed to unsafe content (including things like hate speech or alcohol/drug-related content) or unwanted messages.sages in the previous month.
When asked about this type of research, a Meta spokesperson told CBC News they recognize that no system is perfect. They added that parents will also be able to give the company feedback on what content should be limited to teenagers only to improve its moderation.
Parents still need to be vigilant
Levy says the new restrictions alone will help a little, but he's concerned that announcements like these could lull parents into a false sense of security.
“Parents assume that platforms like Meta are taking over this problem, that they'll take care of it, and then they kind of relax their efforts to keep their kids safe digitally,” Levy said.
“At the end of the day, it's still family.It is your responsibility—as mom, dad, caregivers, children, and the community that surrounds them—toConfident that their children are being raised to be good digital citizens.”
As the mother of two teenagers – a 14-year-old and a 17-year-old – Katherine Korakakis says change is welcome. “I think anything we can do to give parents the tools they need… to make sure their kids have a safer online experience, [a] a good step forward,” Korakakis said.
But while her children use teen Instagram accounts, Korakakis is not at the mercy of the platform's fences. She says she also personally monitors their social media use and maintains parental controls that can limit the sites her children can access on their devices and sets time limits on individual platforms.
Korakakis adds that she believes the only real solution is to provide parents with information to monitor their children's social media use.
Levy also says it's important for parents to talk to their children about the risks of social media because limiting children's access to technology will only force them to find ways to bend the rules.
“Have these conversations so they know they can come to you in a trusting, non-judgmental environment,” Levy said. “This is an approach based on partnership, not competition.”
