Meta, a social media group, has added new features that will make it harder for young learners to get messages on Facebook and Instagram.
The company said that the new rules that went into effect today build on an earlier rule that said adults couldn’t message kids who weren’t following them.
Meta said that teens will no longer be able to receive direct messages from people they don’t follow or are connected with on Instagram. It includes other teens.
Read also: “1 million Facebook accounts” may have been hijacked, says Meta
Meta is also adding more parental controls by letting parents decide whether to let teens change the usual privacy settings or not. In the past, when kids changed these settings, their parents were told, but they couldn’t do anything about it.
Meta’s words
Meta announced the new features to protect teens on its social media platforms the following day. “To help protect teens from unwanted contact on Instagram, we restrict adults over 19 from messaging teens who don’t follow them, and we limit the type and number of direct messages (DMs) people can send to people who don’t follow them to one text-only message.
We’re turning off kids’ ability to receive DMs from people they don’t follow or aren’t connected to on Instagram—including other teens—by default to safeguard them from inappropriate contact.
Students and parents may rest assured that only persons they follow or are connected to can message or add them to group chats with this new default setting.
Youngsters under 16 (or 18 in some countries) will utilise this default setting. Our message settings changes will be shown at the top of Instagram Feeds.
It’s also modifying kids’ default Messenger settings, which limit communications to Facebook friends or phone contacts under 16 (or 18 in some regions).
More parental control
Since March 2022, Meta has added additional tools to Instagram parental supervision to help parents monitor their adolescents’ online activity.
Parents may set time limits and plan breaks, see when their child blocks or shares someone they reported, and be notified when their kid changes settings. The company is adding features.
Parents using supervision will now be asked to approve or deny their under-16 teens’ requests to change their default safety and privacy settings.
For instance, if a teen under supervision changes their account from private to public, Sensitive Content Control from “Less” to “Standard”, or DM settings to hear from people they don’t follow or connect to, their parent will be notified to approve or deny the request, Meta said.