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Those under sixteen will not be able to use Instagram’s Live feature unless they acquire parental permission.
New restrictions are being introduced on Instagram for users under the age of 16.
As part of Meta’s expansion of current safety measures, younger teenagers will be barred from using the platform’s ‘Live’ feature unless they have parental permission. They’ll also need approval from a guardian to manually turn off blurred image thumbnails that conceal sensitive content.
These changes were announced as part of Instagram’s teen accounts system being extended to both Facebook’s main homepage and its Messenger service.
Introduced last year, this system puts those under the age of eighteen into a default setting that allows parents to set daily time limits, block use at certain times of day, and see who their children are messaging. These new features will be rolled out in the US, UK, Australia and Canada, with more regions to follow.
According to Meta, 54 million Instagram teen accounts are in use around the world, with 90% of 13 to 15-year-olds opting into the default restrictions settings.
As the Guardian mentions, these announcements come at the same time as the UK implements its Online Safety Act.
This new legislation requires more than 100,000 services across Facebook, X, Google and Reddit to stop the appearance of illegal content. This includes sexual abuse images, fraud or terrorist material. If anything is published, these platforms must take it down.
We wrote recently about Meta falling into hot water thanks to the publication of ‘Careless People,’ a memoir by Sarah Wynn-Williams that alleges rampant, toxic tech ‘bro’ culture at the company. Meta has blocked promotion of the book in the US.
