Instagram's New Age-Verification Measures: A Step Towards Safer Online Spaces?

In a bid to provide a safer online experience for teenagers, Instagram has announced a slew of new measures aimed at preventing underage users from accessing its adult-only features. The social media giant has announced that it will automatically convert teens into private accounts, complete with stricter content settings and hidden words filters. This move is expected to reduce the exposure of minors to potentially sensitive content. The new settings will be enabled by default for new users under the age of 18, with existing teen users being gradually rolled out over the coming year. Users under 16 will require parental permission to adjust their account settings, while those over 16 will be able to make changes on their own – unless their account is still linked to a parental supervisor. Meta is also taking steps to prevent teens from finding workarounds, such as attempting to change their age or create new accounts with adult birthdays. To achieve this, the company is developing a range of measures, including age verification checks and the use of artificial intelligence to predict whether users are lying about their age. The AI-powered technology, which Meta claims is a first for the industry, uses machine learning algorithms to analyze user behavior and determine whether they are over or under the age of 18. This information will be used to prompt users to age-verify and potentially switch to a teen account.