Instagram Makes Teen Accounts Private Amid Social Media Safety Backlash

Amid social media backlash over safeguards for young users, Instagram has announced it will be making teen accounts private.
Starting this week, new Instagram users under 18 in the U.S., U.K., Canada, and Australia will automatically have private accounts and existing teen accounts will transition to this default over the next 60 days. European teens will experience similar changes later this year.
While Meta acknowledges that teenagers may lie about their age when signing up, the company says it plans to implement stricter age verification measures. Additionally, Meta is developing technology that will detect and restrict accounts pretending to be adults.
In addition, teen accounts will face more stringent messaging restrictions, limiting messages to users they follow. “Sensitive content,” such as violence or cosmetic procedure promotions, will also be restricted. Teens will also receive prompts if they spend more than 60 minutes on the app and will have access to a “sleep mode,” which deactivates notifications from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m.
While teens aged 16 and 17 can opt out of these settings, younger users will require parental consent to do so.
Meta’s head of product, Naomi Gleit, emphasized that these changes address the main concerns parents have expressed, particularly regarding unwanted content, unsolicited contact, and excessive screen time.
“The three concerns we’re hearing from parents are that their teens are seeing content that they don’t want to see or that they’re getting contacted by people they don’t want to be contacted by or that they’re spending too much on the app,” Gleit said in a statement.
This announcement comes as part of Meta’s broader effort to curb concerns about potential harms linked to social media use among young people.
The concerns come after U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy previously warned in an advisory issued a year ago about the connection between social media and young people’s mental health. Murthy said at the time he recommended policymakers needed to address the harms of social media in the same way they regulate things like baby formula, medication and other products children use.
Newsweek has reached out to Murthy’s office via email for comment.
In addition, in a June opinion piece published in The New York Times, titled “Why I’m Calling for a Warning Label on Social Media Platforms,” Surgeon General Murthy, who was nominated by President Joe Biden in 2020, explains how social media has become an increasing contributing factor in affecting mental health in young people.
“It is time to require a surgeon general’s warning label on social media platforms, stating that social media is associated with significant mental health harms for adolescents. A surgeon general’s warning label, which requires congressional action, would regularly remind parents and adolescents that social media has not been proved safe. Evidence from tobacco studies show that warning labels can increase awareness and change behavior,” Murthy wrote.
According to Yale Medicine, the impact of social media on mental health is a significant concern as excessive use can lead to issues like disrupted sleep, attention problems, and exposure to harmful content. Some studies link heavy social media use to increased anxiety, depression, and eating disorders.
Meanwhile, this comes as Meta’s past efforts to enhance teen safety have been met with criticism for falling short as several U.S. states have filed lawsuits accusing Meta of fueling a youth mental health crisis by deliberately designing addictive features on Instagram and Facebook.
In an effort to address these concerns, Meta with these latest changes is giving parents more options to oversee their kids’ accounts and is encouraging parents to use its Family Center tool to monitor their teens’ interactions and promote important conversations about online behavior.