Instagram, facing scrutiny from federal regulators, recently unveiled its “Teen Accounts” program. That’s a significant shift from the social media giant’s previous freewheeling approach to content regulation.
The new program by Instagram, which about half of U.S. teenagers use daily, moves all future and existing accounts of those under 18 years of age to private mode. In practice, that means teenage users will have to approve new followers before they can see, like, or comment on posts.
Additionally, teenagers will not receive Instagram notifications between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. Instagram also will show less sensitive content, such as that containing nudity or self-harm material. Moreover, teenagers will not receive messages through the app from fellow users they don’t already follow. And they’ll be asked to select content themes they’re particularly interested in seeing.
Teenagers 16 and 17 years old will be able to change these default settings, but users under 16 will have to gain their parents’ permission to do so. Instagram plans to use artificial intelligence-powered, third-party age verification measures to prevent teenagers from circumventing the new safeguards.
As for parents, they will be able to see who their teenager has messaged and how much time he or she has spent on the app. Parents also can set daily Instagram time limits for their children and block out use for certain times. Parents can further view what content categories their teenager has asked to be shown through the app’s parental supervision tool.
Proponents of government regulation think Instagram’s action is long overdue, and insufficient, and fear many teenagers will find workarounds to the protections.
Still, it’s something, said Shoshana Weissmann, a fellow at the R Street Institute, in an interview. Since it is unclear if legislation bogged down in Congress will ever happen. For instance, the House Energy and Commerce Committee advanced the Kids Online Safety Act in September. While it’s unclear if the bill will become law, owing to differences between the House and Senate versions, critics of the measure have raised concerns over unintended consequences, such as possible government censorship, legal uncertainty for platforms, and a loss of privacy for even adult users triggered by age verification obligations.
“Compared to KOSA, it’s a no-brainer that this is better,” Weissmann said.
But pressure for regulatory intervention isn’t just coming from some in Congress. The Federal Trade Commission recently released a critical report about broader social media data collection and use problems.
The 129-page staff report was the culmination of a process that began under then-President Donald Trump’s administration and took four years to produce. In it, the FTC claims that the nine social media and streaming companies, surveyed for information from between 2019 and 2020, profited from user information by using it for advertising that targeted specific users by demographics in “ways consumers might not expect.” The FTC asserts that the use of data for more precisely aimed advertising included behavior that the agency found insufficiently protected minors’ information, writing that some companies “bury their heads in the sand when it comes to children” who use their services.
The businesses studied were composed of Instagram’s parent company, Meta, Google-owned YouTube, the recently banned but still operating TikTok, Amazon’s Twitch streaming service, Discord, Snapchat, and the messenger boards Reddit and X.
Some of the companies responded to the report by pointing out that they’ve since changed data policies and that not every accusation applied to all of the companies studied.
It remains to be seen if private actions by online companies to protect minors, such as those recently taken by Instagram, will sufficiently address families' concerns.
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Until now, “self-regulation has been a failure,” the FTC report said.
The FTC concluded its report with a recommendation that Congress take regulatory action by passing comprehensive federal privacy legislation. Yet, with a narrowly divided House and Senate and a presidential election on the horizon, that’s an effort that seems unlikely in the current congressional session.