With more and more regions considering tougher restrictions on teenage social media use, and penalties for platforms that fail to align with such, Instagram’s looking to implement more measures to protect teen users, and reassure parents that it’s doing all that it can to keep young users safe from online dangers.
Today, Instagram has announced an update to its teen accounts, which will implement more stringent restrictions on content, which it says are more in line with what’s acceptable in a PG-13 rated movie.
As explained by Instagram:
“Today, we’re announcing that Instagram Teen Accounts will be guided by PG-13 movie ratings by default. This means that teens will see content on Instagram that’s similar to what they’d see in a PG-13 movie. Teens under 18 will be automatically placed into an updated 13+ setting, and they won’t be able to opt out without a parent’s permission.”
The idea with this is that it will offer more assurance to parents through improved context as to what its teen content restrictions mean, because people are generally more aware of what PG-13 movie ratings represent, as opposed to a social platform’s teen restrictions.
“Just like you might see some suggestive content or hear some strong language in a PG-13 movie, teens may occasionally see something like that on Instagram, but we’re going to keep doing all we can to keep those instances as rare as possible. We recognize no system is perfect, and we’re committed to improving over time.”
In terms of specifics, Instagram says that the updated approach will expand on its longstanding teen content restrictions “that hide or prohibit the recommendation of sexually suggestive content, graphic or disturbing images, and adult content like tobacco or alcohol sales from teens.” The expanded PG-13 policies will also include restrictions on posts with strong language, certain risky stunts, and additional content that could encourage potentially harmful behaviors.
The restriction on risky stunts is interesting, considering the rise of prank-style videos on platforms like IG and TikTok. Various pranksters have even gotten themselves into legal trouble because of their actions, while it’s also interesting to note that China implements strict restrictions on prank-style content to avoid negative impacts.
It seems that Instagram has taken note, and is now looking to enact similar, though how far such restrictions will go remains to be seen.
Instagram has also provided a breakdown of the new teen restrictions by section:
- Accounts: Teens will no longer be able to follow accounts that we’ve found regularly share age-inappropriate content, or if their name or bio suggests the account is inappropriate for teens.
- Search: We already block search terms related to certain sensitive topics, like suicide, self-harm, and eating disorders. Now we’ll block teens’ ability to see content results for a wider range of mature search terms, such as ‘alcohol’ or ‘gore’ – and we’re working to make sure these terms will still be blocked if they’re misspelled.
- Content Experience: Teens shouldn’t see content that goes against our updated guidelines in recommendations (Explore, Reels, and in-Feed), Feed, and Stories – even when shared by someone they follow – or comments. If someone sends a teen a link to such content in DMs, they won’t be able to open it.
- AI: We’ve also updated our AI experiences for teens to be guided by PG-13 ratings by default, meaning AIs should not give age-inappropriate responses that would feel out of place in a PG-13 movie.
Instagram says that the updated restrictions are based on feedback from “thousands of parents around the world,” while it will also continue to elicit feedback from parents through a new prompt that will enable adult users to flag potentially inappropriate content in-stream.
That will help to give it an ongoing track of new trends and forms of harmful material, which it will then build into its detection algorithms to help stop teen exposure to such in the app.
Finally, Instagram is also rolling out a new, stricter setting for parents who prefer a more restrictive experience for their teen.
Built on its evolving AI detection systems, the new options will ideally help to limit teen exposure in the app, while also providing more assurance for parents, and potentially lessening the push for further restrictions on social apps.
Because as noted, many regions are indeed considering tougher teen access limits.
Over the past year, several European nations, including France, Greece and Denmark, have put their support behind a sweeping proposal to restrict social media access to users aged under 15, while Spain has proposed a 16 year-old access restriction. Australia and New Zealand are also moving to implement their own laws that would restrict social media access to those over the age of 16, as is Papua New Guinea, while Norway is also developing its own regulations.
It seems inevitable that some form of higher restriction, and penalty, is coming on this front, but maybe, with Instagram pushing to improve its measures, that will lessen the emphasis on this aspect.
Though I guess, the real proof is in application. It's one thing for Instagram to say that it's improving its restrictions, and the "PG-13" qualifier will certainly make this approach more palatable, and tangible for parents. But how will that actually impact teen users, and will these new restrictions and controls really keep kids more safe, and reduce harmful exposure in the app?
We don't know, and we won't know till it's been activated, and we then get some level of quantitative feedback on the expanded response from users.
But hopefully, this is another measure, aligned with Meta's broader AI integration within its detection and enforcement systems, that will drive meaningful improvements, which will then protect young users in its apps.
Instagram says that its updated content settings will begin rolling out from today, beginning with teen accounts in the U.S., U.K., Australia, and Canada. A broader roll-out will come following the completion in these regions.
