Instagram to automatically put teens into private accounts with increased restrictions and parental controls
NBCSEP 20 2024
In response to gowing child safety concerns from parents and youth groups, Meta-owned social media app Instagram has implemented new restrictions for users under the age of 18.
The new features include automatically setting every teen's account — of which there are 100M globally — to private, limiting their direct messaging (DM) only to accounts they follow, and reducing the amount of adult-oriented content they see.
Teens will also "only be tagged or mentioned by people they follow," receive "notifications telling them to leave the app after 60 minutes each day," hide "offensive words and phrases" from their "comments and DM requests," and "mute notifications" from 10 p.m to 7 a.m.