Meta has updated Instagram’s safety policy, introducing automatic restrictions for accounts that frequently post photos or videos of children. These accounts will be moved to the strictest message settings and will also receive a «Hidden Words» filter to block offensive comments.
Meta has updated Instagram’s safety policy, introducing automatic restrictions for accounts that frequently post photos or videos of children. These accounts will be moved to the strictest message settings and will also receive a «Hidden Words» filter to block offensive comments.
As TechCrunch reports, the changes will affect accounts managed by adults, including parents or managers of children’s bloggers. Meta emphasizes that while most such pages are used with good intentions, certain users may try to exploit them by leaving sexualized comments or sending inappropriate messages.
To mitigate risks, the platform will limit the ability of suspicious users (for example, those who have already been blocked by teenagers) to find accounts with children’s content and recommend them in the feed or through search. In addition, the owners of such accounts will receive a message in the feed with a suggestion to review their privacy settings.
Meta has also added new safety tools for teens. Messages will now include reminders on how to spot potential scams, and chats will now display the month and year the person’s account was created at the top of the chat. Teens will be able to block and report a suspicious account at the same time, a move they made more than 2 million times in June after receiving notifications.
The company also reported that it had removed nearly 135,000 Instagram accounts that sexualized content featuring children, and another 500,000 associated profiles on Instagram and Facebook.
The changes are a response to increased attention to teen mental health and child safety on social media. Meta also previously introduced a nudity filter, which 99% of users have left enabled.
Recall that we also published an article about how Instagram is testing the repost feature: users will be able to republish posts in the feed.
