Instagram to Limit Sensitive Content for New Users Under 16 Years by Default

Instagram introduced new safety measures and parental features to offer more control over their feeds and profiles last year. Now, the meta-owned photo and video sharing company is limiting sensitive content for new teen users by default on the platform. With the latest update, Instagram account holders under the age of 16 will be put into its filtered version of the app, unless they manually change the setting. Additionally, Instagram is testing a new way that allows teens to review and update their safety and privacy settings.

Through a blog post on Thursday, Instagram announced that it is expanding its sensitive content defaults for young users. The Sensitive Content Control has only two options for teens — “Standard” and “Less.” According to the company, Instagram users under 16 years will be defaulted into the “Less” state. For the existing users, the company will send a prompt encouraging them to choose the “Less” option.

With the latest update, Instagram will filter sensitive content across Search, Explore, Hashtag Pages, Reels, Feed Recommendations, and Suggested Accounts for young users.

Users over the age of 18 years, in contrast, will have access to “Standard,” “Less,” and “More” options with the last option allowing them to see more sensitive content or accounts than the default settings.

Apart from this, Instagram will also ask users under 18 years on the app to do a settings review to update safety and privacy settings. With this, teens can limit who can share their content, who can direct message and contact them, and what kind of content their followers can view. The company will also show prompts asking teens to review how they can manage their time spent on Instagram.

All of these new measures are being put into place with the intent to create a safer environment for youngsters on Instagram. The company in July last year introduced a sensitivity filter that allows people to set limits around how much potentially sensitive content they might see on their ''Explore'' page. Later in August, it started prompting users to fill in their birthday details to understand how old everyone is on the platform and prevent content that isn't suitable for young people to appear on their feed.

In March this year, Instagram launched parental controls that allow parents to track how much time their children are spending on Instagram. With the help of Instagram supervision tools, parents can view what accounts their children follow and can set time limits for how long their kids spend on the app.