Instagram said Tuesday that the platform has introduced a teen account feature. This feature features special protection measures for the safety of users in India, one of the largest markets with over 350 million users.
The company introduced teen accounts in the US, UK, Canada and Australia last year. A meta of Instagram users under the age of 16 has migrated their accounts to these new types of accounts with default restrictions. These teen accounts are private accounts by default and have messaging restrictions, content controls, interaction restrictions, time-limited reminders and sleep modes.
“In the meta, creating a safer and responsible digital environment is our number one priority. Natasha Jog, director of public policy India at Instagram, said that Instagram’s teen accounts will expand to India, providing greater protection. It strengthens parental strengthening while ensuring a safer experience for teens.
Setting up a teen account means that users under the age of 16 require parent or guardian permission to change some settings on your account. Additionally, parents of users over the age of 16 have the option to turn on supervision of their teenage accounts.
Parents can see who their children are interacting with but cannot see the message. You can also set daily usage restrictions and block apps at certain times.
At the content level, meta allows users to retrieve messages from people they are connected to. Regarding Connected People standards, the company considers whether the sender is friends with one of the receivers on the meta platform, or has previously interacted with them on DMS, but will not follow each other. Teens can also be tagged only by the people they follow.
Meta also automatically removes offensive words and phrases from teenage accounts. Additionally, the company is removing content such as combat and cosmetic promotions from Explore Page and Reels. Teens can select topics like soccer, crafts, dance, music & audio, cats, food and drinks, computer science, and retry the exploration page to view content related to the selected category Masu.
Meta said teens often lie about their age on various platforms, so they also use methods such as ID verification and video selfies recording for user age verification.
Last month, India released draft rules related to the Data Protection Act, outlining that businesses cannot process user 18 data with verifiable parental consent. If these rules are finalized, the platform may require additional protection.
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