Meta this week announced a new round of features and restrictions intended to improve child safety on Instagram.
Upon receiving DMs from strangers, Teen Account holders will now see options for safety tips and blocking, as well as more details about the sender, such as the month and year they joined Instagram, at the top of a chat. Meta believes this could provide teens with “more context about the accounts they’re messaging and help them spot potential scammers.”
(Credit: Meta)
The block and report options in DMs are also getting an upgrade. When tapping Block, users will be able to take both actions at once, “so we can review and take action,” Meta says.
For now, these DM changes are limited to Instagram, but Meta tells CNET that it may consider bringing them to Messenger as well.
(Credit: Meta)
Since launching Teen Accounts last September, Meta has added several safety features to improve the program. The nudity protection feature, added in April, blurred 40% of images DMed last month and reduced the forwarding of sensitive images by 45% in May. Additionally, teens used Location Notice 1 million times last month to check where their senders are located.
Meta is extending some of these Teen Account restrictions to adult-managed child accounts as well. By default, Meta doesn’t let anyone under 13 sign up for Instagram, but the company allows “adults to run accounts representing children under 13 if it’s clear in the account bio that they manage the account.”
Unfortunately, Meta says such accounts have become targets for predators who leave sexualized comments under posts or ask for sexual images in DMs. To help reduce such violations, Hidden Words will automatically be enabled for these accounts in the coming months. The feature filters offensive comments and prevents unwanted messages.
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Meta will also make it difficult for offending adult users to find such child accounts. If an adult has been blocked by a teen, they won’t see child accounts appear in Search. Meta will also stop recommending these accounts to suspicious adults and vice versa.
The non-teen account restrictions will begin rolling out next month. They will apply to adult-managed child accounts as well as adult accounts that frequently post photos and videos of their children.
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