It's been an interesting week in the tech space. On Monday, Apple rolled out iOS18, a huge update with many new features. On Tuesday, Sept. 17, Instagram announced it is defaulting all teen Instagram profiles to a new specific "Teen Account" with it's own set of restrictions. And on Wednesday, Sept. 19, the House Energy and Commerce Committee is set to mark up (debate about and discuss amendments) the Kids Online Safety Act. We're focusing on the Instagram developments here.
Big Changes to Teen Instagram Profiles
All teen Instagram users aged 13-17 will notice that over the next few weeks their account will be defaulted to "Teen Account" settings (and all new accounts with the teen D.O.B. will default as well). These new restricted defaults include:
Private Profiles
Restricted DMs to only people you follow
Restricted interaction in tagging (only people you follow can tag you)
Sensitive content filters on the news feed
A time limit of 60 minutes (not enforced, just a suggestion pops up to get off)
Sleep mode enabled - 10pm - 7am for muted notifcations
The Catch & Supervision
Teenagers who are 16 or 17 can adjust these settings back to a fully public and unrestricted account without consequence. Teens 13-15 who try to adjust these settings will be prompted to "add a parent" who can give consent—essentially linking a parent account through a feature that has been available for a couple of years (but not widely used or known) called "supervision" in the Family Center settings.
In the supervision feature parents can set a time limit, which now will be enforced and shut off access when time runs up (as opposed to the suggestion teens can ignore). Parents can also block out usage times of the day (like school hours). This feature came out after our son turned 18 or we would have loved to use it! Parents can also see who teens are messaging, but not the contents of the messages, and they can see the topics their teens are interested in based on searches or engagement.
Moving Forward
Of course it's very interesting that Meta is rolling out these changes when legislative pressure is mounting with the Kids Online Safety Act. Because these new features look to be robust (read all about them here), engineers must have been working on them for some time, though it's interesting nothing was said about them when Zuckerberg was being grilled by Congress in January. Regardless, there seem to be some people working at Meta with an actual conscience about all of the harm teenagers have endured as the result of years of safety negligence when it comes to minors. Will teenagers lie about their age to get around these new restrictions? They will surely try! Adam Mosseri says they're working on a way to thwart that. Again, WHERE WAS THIS MOTIVATION 12 YEARS AGO? Oh well, for now we applaud any progress, we wait and see if it makes a big enough difference, we push for legislative accountability, and we continue to tell parents: DELAY SOCIAL MEDIA.
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