New Instagram accounts for children under 16 will be created as private by default. Something is changing on social networks. In January, TikTok announced that, in the interest of improving the privacy of teenage accounts, the profiles of teens aged 13 to 15 would be made private by default. Today, Instagram announced a similar move.
From now on, by default new accounts of those under 16 (18 in some countries) will be created as private. This will allow what private profiles already allow, greater control over who sees your content (and your appearances in ‘Explore’) and who can comment on your posts.
The company mentions that in recent tests, eight out of ten teens accepted the default private profile settings when creating the account. In addition to this measure that will run by default on new accounts, Instagram has also mentioned that they will display a notification pointing out the benefits of making the account private and how to switch to it.
In addition to these measures, there are other new ones such as curbing contact between teenagers and people with “potentially suspicious behavior” (adults blocked by other minors). What the social network will do is not allow these people to follow accounts of minors that appear in its ‘Explore’ section or in search. It is in this section where it has recently been allowed to limit the appearance of sexually suggestive or violent content.
Finally, at the advertising level, advertisers will now only be able to target their content to minors under 18 based on age, gender, and location. Previously, they could do so based on interests and activity on other websites and apps.
