April 8 (UPI) — Meta on Tuesday announced new restrictions to its “Teen Accounts” on Instagram and introduced the limited accounts to Facebook.
Under the new restrictions for Instagram Teen Accounts people younger than 16 will not be permitted to livestream on the platform or switch off any protections from “unwanted images” in Direct Messages without a parent’s permission, Meta said in a press release Tuesday.
The protections, which will arrive via updates “in the next couple of months,” will also go so far as to “require teens under 16 to get parental permission to turn off our feature that blurs images containing suspected nudity in DMs.”
Teen Accounts will also have notifications shut down overnight, and only allow messages from people they either follow or with whom they have already established a connection.
Teen Accounts are also set to come to Facebook and Facebook Messenger, which will offer “similar, automatic protections to limit inappropriate content and unwanted contact.”
“These are major updates that have fundamentally changed the experience for teens on Instagram,” said the company in the release, and that their “work to support parents and teens doesn’t stop here, so we’re announcing additional protections and expanding Teen accounts to Facebook and Messenger to give parents more peace of mind across Meta apps.”
The release also stated that the company is to institute “ways to ensure teens’ time is well spent,” but did not further explain how.
