On Tuesday Instagram announced that accounts of people who are under the age of 16 will have their accounts defaulted to private accounts starting this week so that they don’t get unwanted DMs and comments from strangers.
Instagram will be defaulting people under 16 into private accounts
The Facebook-owned app said that it wants young people to enjoy the video-sharing app without compromising their safety. Some of the changes Instagram will be making include making it harder for potentially suspicious accounts to find young people and limiting the options advertisers have to reach young people with ads.
Young people who have a public account on the platform will be sent a notification to set their account into a private one — highlighting the benefits of a private account and explaining how to change their privacy settings.
“While most platforms have set their minimum age for participation at 13, there’s no on/off switch that makes someone ready to be a fully media-literate participant on that birthday. Defaulting accounts to private for under-16s encourages young people to develop comfort, confidence and capability as digital citizens during their younger years and help them develop habits to last a lifetime,” said David Kleeman Senior Vice President of Global Trends at Dubit.
Stopping unwanted contact
Instagram will be also making it difficult for young people to find certain adults on the app. This is a good step considering the fact that most sexual grooming cases start from social media platforms like Instagram.
They have developed technology that will find accounts that have shown potentially suspicious behaviour — accounts that have previously been reported by young people accounts.
Young people will also no longer be appearing in Explore, Reels, or ‘Accounts Suggested for You’ to prevent potential creeps from finding them. And if the potential creeps find minors by searching for their usernames, they will not be able to follow them.
These changes will roll out in the US, Australia, France, the UK, and Japan to start and Instagram will look to expand to more countries soon.
How does Instagram know someone is a minor?
Social media apps like Facebook and Instagram are not meant for people under the age of 13, therefore, Instagram is developing Artificial Intelligence (AI) to detect and remove young people’s accounts. They are also developing new experiences, made specifically for minors.
When people open an account on Facebook platforms they are asked for their birthday. Facebook calls this an age screen. Anyone who is under the age of 13 is not allowed to create an account. In some countries, the age required to create an account is even higher.
Instagram said that in case young people misinterpret their age, they also have strategies to fix that, like having their reviewers flag accounts that appear to be used by young people. Also, anyone can still report an account suspected to be used by a minor.