SAN DIEGO — New restrictions on Instagram aimed at protecting young people from harmful content began rolling out Tuesday.
Meta launched "Instagram Teen Accounts" to give parents more control over what their kids are looking at on social media.
Over the next 60 days, Instagram accounts of anyone under the age of 18 will automatically be moved into one of the new teen Instagram accounts.
New features for users under 18
Meta introduced a number of changes for the teen accounts.
- Accounts will automatically be made "Private." The user would have to accept someone's "Follow" request to see their content.
- Users can only receive messages from people they follow or are connected to.
- Exposure to sensitive content, such as videos of people fighting, will be limited.
- Notifications will be muted between 10 p.m. and 7a.m.
The new features can be deactivated. However, for kids under the age of 16, that can only happen with a parent's permission.
"We recognize this product only works if people are having good experiences on it, its not good for parents if they don't like what's happening with their teens. And its not good for teens if they're not having good experiences. So its definitely a business decision that we want to make sure teens are having safe, age appropriate experiences," said Kate Ross, spokesperson for Meta.
"If that means they're spending less time on the app, because they want to manage their time limits, that's fine," she added.
The safety restrictions come after Meta was sued last year by several states, including California, accusing the company of engineering Instagram to be more addictive to kids to boost profits. The lawsuits also accused Meta of collecting data on children under 13 without their parents' consent, a violation of federal law.
In addition to some of the built-in restrictions, parents can block their kids from accessing Instagram during certain times of the day. They can also see who their kids are messaging and how much time they're spending on Instagram.
CBS 8 spoke to Dr. Willa Jenkins, a psychiatrist at Rady Children's Hospital. She said the new measures are a step in the right direction.
"I do have some concerns, whether it will be enough? And if it will provide parents with this false sense of security that now with these measures social media is safe, which I don’t believe will be the case," said Dr. Jenkins.
She recommends parents wait at least until a child is fourteen before allowing them to have a social media account.
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