Parent company Meta plans to expand 'Teen Accounts' globally over the coming weeks. The United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia will follow in the next 60 days. This move has been vaunted as part of the greater plan by Meta to protect the health and safety of its younger users on the platform.

It has also been said that the Teen Accounts are going to make a much safer and more controlled environment for teenagers using Instagram. The announcement comes at a time when social media firms are confronted with the issue of responsibility from social media to keep young users safe from online harms, including exposure to inappropriate content and unwanted contact with strangers. According to the new feature, Instagram has applied a set of default protective measures that intend to make the experience of users below 18 years safer.

Among the most crucial features of Teen Accounts is how those protective settings will be automatically applied, and among them, several features are designed to enhance safety and foster healthier usage patterns. Among some of the biggest changes, accounts of users under 18 years old will default to private. That means teens will have a bit more control in terms of who follows and can interact with their account, since new followers will be at the mercy of user approval. In addition, the messaging settings will be locked down in order to prevent teens from getting messages from individuals that they may not know but rather previous connections only.

Instagram
Instagram

The content filters will go a step further in preventing young users from getting exposed to sensitive material and unsuitable stuff for their age. Policies of content moderation will be set in place for the teen accounts to ensure that teens are exposed to less harmfully explicit content. Another important feature is a limitation to tagging and mentioning, which obstructs unwanted interactions and at the same time reduces the possibility of harassment or online bullying.

Instagram is introducing daily time limit reminders for users operating Teen Accounts as a means for kids to practice healthier behavior on its social network. When teens have used the platform for 60 minutes, they'll be shown a notification that they've reached their daily recommended usage so they can avoid too much screen time and find a more balanced way of using the app. The 'Sleep Mode' is automatically turned on for Teen Accounts between 10 PM and 7 AM to help eliminate late-night use and give users breaks.

Those under the age of 16 will have such defaults even more conservative, and any attempt at making them less conservative will require approval by a parent. Through a new supervision system, parents will be given the chance to supervise their child's activities on Instagram without having a peek at their private messages. It gives the parents more control while still considering the teenager's privacy.

Meta will begin deploying its Teen Accounts feature in stages, starting first in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia, and then later this year in the EU before expanding on to the rest of the world, starting with the Middle East in January.

The addition of teen accounts comes at a time when social media platforms are under increased scrutiny over the impact their services have on the mental health and safety of young users. Fears of online predators, cyberbullying, and negative influence on mental health via social media have called for more stringent protections for teenagers. In fact, one such initiative is Meta Teen Accounts, where the company works to make the online environment for its teenagers safer and more positive.