Instagram releases ‘Teen Accounts’ with more privacy and protections

PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Over the next 60 days, the accounts of existing teenage users on Instagram will be switched over to its new ‘Teen Account’ format, where content and comments will be restricted and the account itself will be automatically private.

Sherri Hope Culver, director of the Center for Media and Information Literacy at Temple University, said the new accounts will do more to protect privacy and put more controls on what teens see and who they can interact with, but the Meta has also been vague about the extent of those protections.

“We’ll be taking away sensitive content, or we will monitor the words that they use in certain ways and eliminate it? You don’t exactly know what that means yet,” Culver said.

The new Teen Accounts will not allow users to message anyone they are not following and gives parents the ability to check who their children are talking to using their own phone.

Children under 16 will have to get parental permission to change any of those pre-set settings.

Culver said the change has been a long time coming.

“What did we really know about social media before it started? We learned while we were using it. And teens learned while they were using it. Parents learned while their kids were using it,” she said. “I applaud their willingness to finally take action to try to protect kids, and that’s vitally important and it’s a long time coming. On the other hand, until it’s implemented for a bit it’s hard to know how restrictive it will be.”

She also said the classification of “sensitive” content is vague and could lead to important information being blocked.