Instagram has updated some safety controls for teens. This reduces the chances of encountering potentially sensitive content on the site.
The Meta-owned platform says that more sensitive content is hidden by default when new users under the age of 16 join the site.
With this change, existing users under the age of 16 will also be prompted to update their accounts to match this new setting. This is what Instagram calls Sensitive Content Control.
Instagram says the tool will make it more difficult for young people to come across sensitive content and accounts across all areas of the platform, including search results and suggested accounts.
“Sensitive Content Control has only two options for teens: ‘Normal’ and ‘Less’. New to Instagram, his teen under 16 defaults to “less”. We will send a prompt to her teenage users who are already on Instagram to choose the ‘Less’ experience,” the social media platform said in a blog post.
“This makes it more difficult for young people to come across potentially sensitive content and accounts on Search, Explore, hashtag pages, reels, feed recommendations and featured accounts.”
The latest announcement comes as social media platforms continue to face scrutiny for the efforts they are making to protect users, especially children and young people, from potentially harmful content.
Governments and regulators around the world are also working on regulations that force companies to do more to protect their users, or face hefty fines or block access to sites. or may
As part of the announcement, Instagram also confirmed that it is testing a new feature that encourages and reminds teens to think about their privacy settings on the platform.
“We will prompt teens to review their settings, including who they can reshare content with, who they can message and contact, what content they can see, and how they can manage the time they spend on Instagram.” the company said.
“These updates are part of how we are working to protect teens on Instagram.”
