Instagram enhances safety measures for young people |
Instagram said the types of content it recommends for teens in its photo-sharing apps are more restrictive. If you focus on one topic for a long time, you will be directed to different areas.
In a blog post titled Improving Child Protection and Supporting Parents' Education Online, the social media service announced a series of changes aimed at teenage users.
Adam Mosseri, president of the platform, wants to testify at congressional hearings on protecting children online.
The platform and its parent company Meta (formerly Facebook) are currently under review. It's about how its services are creating mental health and online safety issues for young users.
The platform also disabled users' ability to tag or tag teens they didn't follow through the app.
He said that from January, young users of the platform will be able to collectively delete previous content, likes and comments.
He explained that Instagram is studying controls to restrict content submitted that is harmful or sensitive to young people through its search function, hashtags, scroll and account functions, and "crawl" pages.
The post also notes that the platform has introduced a "take a breather" feature in the US, UK, Canada and Australia. This feature reminds users not to use the app after a while.
The company also announced that it will launch its first parent-guardian tool in March next year. It's about knowing how much time teens spend on the app and setting a time limit.
The Instagram decision was made before the Senate hearing
A spokesperson for the platform said it would continue to suspend plans to post to Instagram for kids. Due to the growing opposition to the project, the company stopped planning the project in September.
The move was reported in the Wall Street Journal that internal documents showed the company knew Instagram could harm girls' mental health.
Although Facebook said that a former Facebook employee, Frances Hogan (Francis Hogan) was using leaked documents to discredit the company's work.
Prosecutors and lawmakers have also raised concerns about this child-focused app. Last month, a bipartisan coalition formed by the US attorney general announced that despite the potential harm, it had launched an investigation into Facebook ads on Instagram among children.