Instagram said Tuesday that the platform introduces its feature for adolescents, which has additional security protective measures for users in India, one of its largest markets with over 350 million users.
The company introduced Teen accounts last year to the US, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. The migrant accounts of Instagram users that are under 16 years in these new types of accounts with default restrictions. These teens accounts are private accounts by default and have messaging restrictions, content checks, interaction limits, time limit reminders and sleep function.
“In Meta, creating a safer and more responsible digital environment is a top priority. With the extension of Teen Instagram accounts in India, we enhance protection, enhance content controls and strengthens parents while ensuring a safer experience for adolescents.” Natasha Jog, Director of Public Policy Instagram.
Setting the Teen Account means that users under 16 will need parents or guardians to change certain arrangements in their accounts. In addition, the parents of users over 16 will also have the option to activate the adolescent account supervision.
Parents can see who their children interact with, but they cannot see the message. They can also set daily limits of use and exclude the application during specific hours.
At the content level, META only allows users to receive messages from people with whom they are connected. For the criteria of affiliated people, the company considers the sender being a friend of the receiver on any of the Meta platforms or if they have interacted in DMS before, but they do not follow each other. Teenagers can also be highlighted only by the people who follow.
Meta also filters the aggressive words and phrases from the teenager’s account automatically. In addition, the company removes content such as fighting or promoting cosmetics from the Explore page and cylinders. Teenagers can choose topics such as football, crafts, dance, music and sound, cats, food and drink and computer science to repeat the exploration page and display content related to selected categories.
Meta said it also uses methods such as ID verification and video recording selfies for user age verifications, as teenagers are often for their age on various platforms.
Last month, India published rules of rules on data protection law and described that companies Unable to process users 18 with verifiable parental consent. Platforms may need to have additional protection measures if these rules are finalized.
