More hard hand with teenagers on Instagram: they will have the direct ones

Targa Brega almost perennially with serious accusations that put in the face the company led by Mark Zuckerberg its laxity when putting sticks on the wheels to the mental health problems that afflict the youngest in the social networks of the company. Perhaps for this reason, and to try to silence criticism, Meta has made the determination to expand their security measures with the focus on the youngest on Instagram, where from now on adolescents will not be able to make direct without the express permission of their parents

Users under 16 will have the possibility of making direct on Instagram unless they have their parents’ consent. And they will also need the permission of their parents to deactivate the functionality that breaks those images that can contain nudes that potentially arrive in their eyes through direct messages.

The objective of the changes introduced by Instagram is to prevent adolescents from being eventually confronted with inappropriate content and with people who contact them on this platform with bad intentions. Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, insists that the social network wants make available to parents more tools to control their children’s activity and give them the opportunity to decide what is best for their offspring.

Beyond These changes, Meta has also announced the extension of the Instagram’s adolescents for Facebook and Messenger. The accounts for teenagers left the shell last year on Instagram and assign by default users under 18 years of age that allows their parents to establish limits for the daily use of the social network, block their children’s access to Instagram at certain times of the day, see the accounts with which their offspring exchanges messages and also visualize the different categories of content with which their children are confronted in this platform.

Teenagers also arrive at Facebook and Messenger

The accounts for teenagers on Facebook and Messenger will initially debut in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada. As in the accounts for adolescents on Instagram, on Facebook and Messenger, users under 16 will need their parents’ permission to change their account configuration, while young people aged 16 and 17 will have the power to introduce modifications to that configuration autonomously.

According to goal, Instagram teenagers are used by 54 million users under 18 years of age throughout the globe. And more than 90% of adolescents between 13 and 15 years maintain the restrictions linked by default to such accounts.

Others Restrictions currently in force on Instagram To protect the youngest of potentially harmful content on this 2.0 platform is the configuration of the account so that it is of a private nature by default, the blockade of private messages sent by strangers, strict limits for the visualization of potentially sensitive content, reminders so that the user regularly makes pauses and temporarily separates from the screen and the automatic obstruction of the notifications in the application at night.

The novelties introduced by goal emerge to the surface at one time is that social networks are increasingly under the scrutiny of legislators. Last March, a new norm that forces social networks and other technological platforms to prevent potentially harmful content (thematically related, for example, with suicide and self -injuries), eventually arrives in force in the United Kingdom) eventually arrives in the eyes of young people under 18.