Instagram has introduced new accounts for teenagers, with built-in protections limiting who can contact them and the content they see.
Any users under the age of 16 will require parental permission to change the settings of Instagram Teen Accounts.
MRF Chair of Trustees Ian Russell has cautiously welcomed the move, though warned the platform must provide evidence its new measures are working.
He said: ”Effective age assurance will be required to stop ‘age liars’ beating the system. As Nick Clegg said only last week, parental controls have been proven to be ineffective as there’s very low take-up; these new IG Teen Accounts rely heavily on parental engagement.
“Parents currently report they feel their children’s peer pressure, this is often why they give them a smartphone, even if they’d prefer not to. Similar transferred peer pressure will apply to the new, on-by-default 13-15 safety settings, parents are likely to feel compelled to disable the measures if this is the norm among teens.
“The platform should also be expecting to tweak the measures to block loop-holes and drive them to be as effective as possible. The constant iterative improvement required to keep any new measures working should also be reported on by IG. Transparency, as ever is required if civil society is to judge effectiveness.”
The new teen accounts include a sleep mode feature, which mutes notifications at night and time limit alerts reminding them to leave the app after 60 minutes each day.
All teens in the UK, US, Canada, and Australia who sign up for Instagram will now be placed into Teen Accounts, and all teens in these countries already using Instagram will be moved into a Teen Account within 60 days.
If you’re struggling just text MRF to 85258 so you can speak to a trained volunteer from Shout, the UK’s Crisis Text Line service
