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Summary
- Meta’s ‘Teen Accounts’ feature is expanding to Facebook and Messenger with stricter privacy and content limits.
- More parental controls are coming soon, requiring teens to get approval from parents to go Live or disable nudity blurring.
- Some rules are age-based, with under-16 accounts private by default before getting more freedom at 16+.
In September last year, Meta announced “Teen Accounts” to ensure a safe environment for Instagram users under the age of 16. This feature went live for teens across the world in January this year, and it was only a matter of time before Meta brought this to two of its other popular social media apps. Well, the time has now come, as Meta has announced Teen Accounts for Facebook and Messenger in the US, UK, Australia, and Canada.
This means all the built-in protections that are available in Teen Accounts for Instagram are now also available for Facebook and Messenger. The social media giant is also planning to introduce more restrictions on teen accounts across Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger in the next couple of months.
What does the Teens Accounts feature mean for Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger users?
In its official blog post, Meta has highlighted the benefits that the built-in protections in the Teens Accounts feature provide teens and their parents across its three most popular social media apps. One major change coming to Instagram Teen Accounts is blocking teens from going Live without permission from their parents. Another protection is not allowing teens to turn off the feature that blurs images in DMs on the suspicion of nudity without consent from parents.
Meta is also planning to simplify the Teens Accounts feature by centralizing all the “youth safety” settings into it, as per Tara Hopkins, global director of public policy at Instagram (via Mashable). However, the company hasn’t specified a timeline as to when this change will be in effect. If you’re a parent of a teen, you can monitor and guide your teen on Meta apps like Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger using the Parental Supervision in Meta Family Center.
It’s also worth noting that Instagram will automatically flag new accounts of users under the age of 16 as a teen account. This automatically makes the account private and introduces stricter messaging settings, content restrictions, limited interactions with strangers, and tools to manage screen time.
However, Meta doesn’t apply the same level of restrictions to all the teenage age groups on its platforms. For example, teens aged between 13 and 15 years will require parents’ consent to make any changes to the youth account settings. You have more freedom to adjust settings yourself if you’re 16 years of age or older.
You can access Instagram Reels, regardless of the teenage age group you belong to, but, of course, with certain restrictions. However, now that Meta is planning to separate video reels from Instagram by launching a new app called Reels, it’ll be interesting to see if the company also introduces similar types of restrictions to teen accounts.
