All parents want to ensure their children have a healthy and positive online experience.
Unfortunately, that isn’t always a guarantee nor is it easy to gauge their online activity, especially when they’re teenagers.
With this in mind, Meta has introduced specific measures to help protect teenagers from unwanted contact online, as well as involving the parents.
These updates come as part of Meta’s efforts to protect children online.
New features are being rolled out as it aims to support manage their time spent online on Meta’s apps.
Stricter private messaging defaults for teens
Meta will be disabling teenagers’ (users under 18) ability to receive messages from people they are not connected to online, by default.
This means users under 18 can only receive messages or be added to a group chat if they already follow or are connected to the a user or group admin already.
This feature builds on existing rules that prevent anyone over 19 from sending direct messages to teenagers who do not follow them
New parental controls
Parents using Instagram’s parental supervision tools will now also be prompted to approve or deny any requests made to change the default safety and privacy settings.
For example, if a teenager is trying to make their settings less strict, they will be need to approve or deny this action.
Previously, parents would just be notified after the change was made.
These changes are added to a list of more than 30 safety tools that are already in place for youths and teens.
They also come following Meta’s announcements earlier this month to hide potentially sensitive content from teens on Instagram and Facebook and to roll out new nighttime nudges to encourage teens to close Instagram at night.
Plans for new messaging safety feature
In the coming months, Meta has stated they will launch a new feature that aligns with their goals to protect children online, as per a press release.
This feature will prevent people, including teens, from seeing potentially inappropriate images in their messages from people they’re connected to.
It is hoped that it will also discourage them from sending these images.
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