Instagram is introducing new policies that would restrict interaction between adults and teenagers. The move is intended to make the platform safer for young users.
Instagram will not allow adults to directly message teenagers and on the other hand it will prohibit teenagers to directly message adults deemed to have suspicious characters.
Block or report adults messaging teenagers
Safety prompts have been installed on the App to enable young users to block or report adults who are messaging them. The safety prompts will alert young users not to be coerced to respond to messages and to be vigilant when it comes to sharing photos, videos and information from persons that are unknown to them.
Don’t friend or message request teenagers
The app will send an alert when Instagram will notice any suspicious from adult users. Although the company is not clear on how these security measures will be applied, but they said that suspicion behavior could include sending large amount of friend or message request to teenagers. According to the company, this feature will be rolled out in some countries this month and will extend globally soon.
The company which is owned by Facebook has hinted on developing artificial intelligence and machine learning technology which will enable the platform to detect a person’s age when they sign up for an account. To open an account with Instagram, a person is required to have attained the age of 13 years and above however some people lie about their age thus the company intends to restrict with the introduction of new machine learning systems.
Private profiles
New teenage users will be required to make their profile private and that those who choose to have public account the app will contact such youth later emphasizing on the importance of having a private account calling upon them to change their settings
