By Modupe Gbadeyanka
The need to protect teenagers and give their parents peace of mind while surging the Internet, especially on social media, has necessitated the introduction of Instagram Teen accounts.
Instagram explained that in a post on Wednesday that it developed Teen Accounts with parents and teens in mind, noting that they are designed to address parents’ biggest concerns, including who their teens are talking to online, the content they’re seeing and whether their time is being well spent.
These protections are turned on automatically, and parents decide if teens under 16 can change any of these settings to be less strict.
The built-in protections limit who can contact them and the content they see, and also provide new ways for teens to explore their interests.
Teens under 16 will need their parent’s permission to use less protective settings. To get permission, teens will need to set up parental supervision on Instagram. If parents want more oversight over their older teen’s (16+) experiences, they simply have to turn on parental supervision. Then, they can approve any changes to these settings, irrespective of their teen’s age.
The company stated that once supervision is established, parents can approve and deny their teens’ requests to change settings or allow teens to manage their settings themselves. Soon, parents will also be able to change these settings directly to be more protective.
“We recognize parents are concerned that their teens might see mature or inappropriate content online, which is why we have stricter rules around the kinds of content teens see on our apps. We remove content that breaks our rules and avoid recommending potentially sensitive content – such as sexually suggestive content or content discussing suicide or self-harm.
“With Instagram Teen Accounts, teens will be placed into the strictest setting of our sensitive content control, so they’re even less likely to be recommended sensitive content, and in many cases we hide this content altogether from teens, even if it’s shared by someone they follow,” the note stated.
