META South Africa is a leading hand in the online safety trend, one where we see our children protected against the horrors of social media. Whilst social media is a necessary evil in this day and age, it does not mean that there cannot be measures in place to mitigate some of the woes. Welcome Teen Accounts!
META South Africa recently launched their newest online protection mechanism: Teen Accounts. This is a new experience for teens, guided by parents. These accounts have built-in protection that limits who can contact them and the content they see. In addition, it also provides more ways to safely connect with friends and explore their interests.
In their presentation, META outlines how the Teen Accounts addresses the largest concerns reported by parents around their teens’ use of social media apps. First on the list of worries: Who can contact the teen and who they can contact in return. Secondly, parents are also worried about the content teens see, and thirdly, how much time their children spend online.
Built-in protection includes limiting who can contact teens and better aligning the content they see with their interests and growing careers. Furthermore, teens under 16 will not be able to change any of these automatic settings to be less strict without getting a parent’s permission. Let’s dive in deeper.
With this update, all teens on Instagram (new and existing) will get the Teen Accounts experience. They will receive an initial notice of being placed into the Teen Accounts category and then be automatically enrolled. The experience varies depending on the age group and if supervision is enabled or not. Teens who are 16 or 17 years old will have less restrictions and be able to change settings compared to those under 16. META has also responded to worries about teens lying about their age when signing up. They have instilled Age Verification Technology that require teens to prove their age through a video selfie or ID check. This is for existing teens trying to change their birthday, as well as new teens signing up.
Teen Accounts will automatically default to private, meaning teens need to accept new followers. Furthermore, people who do not follow them cannot see their content or interact with them. Under 16s’ accounts will automatically default to private, including the ones that were previously public. Parental permission is required to change this. Late teens (16 to 17 years old) will be able to retain their account settings. New teens of this age group will be able to change the defaulted private to public without parental permission.
Teen Accounts will limit new message requests from teens or adults they do not follow. Teens will also only be able to be tagged, mentioned or have their content remixed by people they follow.
Users with a Teen Account will be placed in the most strict option for sensitive content control and Hidden Words by default. Teens will also be asked what sort of content they would like to receive so META’s algorithm shows them meaningful and educational content in line with their interests.
In order to respect the teen’s privacy, META has created a Supervision Dashboard for parents without giving parents access to the Teen Account. For example, parents will be able to see who the teen is messaging but not what the content of those messages are. Furthermore, parents will be able to see insights such as time spent on Instagram, followers and following, and blocked accounts. A parent can control screen time by enabling active versus sleep mode periods.
META Teen Accounts is all about creating a safe space for teens to exist online. In an age where it feels like if you are not online, you do not exist, META understands that social media is inevitable. With these few restrictions and supervision elements, teens are already a whole lot safer online than before. For more information, visit the META Family Centre or the Instagram Parents Guide.
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