Instagram’s new protections for children don’t go far enough

Opinion of Zeynep Tufekci on September 17, 2024.

Instagram has just announced “sweeping” changes to how it handles underage accounts, a belated acknowledgement that a social platform that aims to encourage engagement can have harmful effects on children. Accounts whose owners identify as underage will now be set to private by default, stop sending notifications between the hours of 10 p.m. and 7 a.m., and allow parent accounts to see who receives their kids’ messages.

But for many teens, these new rules will have little impact, as the platform has not implemented age verification.

Related Story: Meta Removes Thousands of Sextortion Facebook and Instagram Accounts…

New Instagram Policy

In response to Instagram’s new policy, many kids will simply create “finstas” — fake accounts — and continue as normal. What’s more, 16- and 17-year-olds can opt out of these settings without needing parental permission. Anyone familiar with teens and the platform can see that Instagram’s new policy is less of a solution and more of an execution of doing something in response to public outrage.

Even these small changes came only after dozens of lawsuits from attorneys general and recent legislation aimed at protecting minors online passed overwhelmingly in the Senate. In an era of polarization, such consensus is a strong indicator of how much the public cares.

While our new connected reality has its benefits, many teens suffer greatly from the constant judgment that is a hallmark of social media platforms. And then there are the many documented cases of blackmail and exploitation of vulnerable youth.

Related Story: Instagram Blurs Nude Posts to Protect Teens, Combat Sexual Exploitation

It is clear that those who can best protect themselves from the dangers of social media are the young people who already have a trusting relationship with their parents. These children are more likely to self-identify as minors and now have somewhat better default settings. But what about the rest of them?

Age verification is the kind of policy that would make such changes have a widespread effect. But it’s not an easy fix. And it certainly wouldn’t be without major drawbacks, especially if it allowed a company to collect even more information about everyone. It could also suppress legitimate and necessary access to online information and speech too much. But those problems could be solved in part by developing new technological approaches, if companies had the incentive to try.

So far, tech companies have little incentive to do much more than belatedly change some settings. Little else is likely to happen until Congress finally gets serious, resists the lobbying of these wealthy companies, and makes a thoughtful effort to pass legislation with teeth to force platforms to take action.

Until then, the most vulnerable children are still left to fend for themselves.

–

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
c. 2024 The New York Times Company