Instagram revising teen account settings amid backlash

Instagram will place new safeguards to ensure content for younger, teen users is age appropriate, Meta, the social media platform's parent company, said Tuesday.

The popular platform began rolling out teen accounts last year. In September 2024, Instagram defaulted to making any accounts for users under 18 private and hiding messages from unknown senders.

Meta is now taking the next steps, saying it will aggregate the content for teen accounts on the same guidelines people use for PG-13 movies. This means Instagram will limit potentially offensive and violent content for its teenage users. People can only opt out of the teen account restrictions with a parent's permission.

One of Meta’s largest focuses on the new teen accounts is age-inappropriate content. Teen accounts will no longer be allowed to follow users who regularly post suggestive content, or accounts that promote explicit things like OnlyFans in their account bios.

In addition to the major change, will Meta place more restrictive search settings for the explore pages of teen accounts. It also said Instagram’s built-in AI tools will not give responses deemed “out of place in a PG-13 movie.”

The revised teen accounts come just a few weeks after former employee Arturo Béjar, along with other non-profit organizations, released a scathing report about Instagram’s lack of security and safety for teenage users.

The report looked into 47 of Instagram’s 53 teenage safety features, claiming that the majority of them were either ineffective or no longer functional. Meta called Béjar’s report “misleading” and “dangerously speculative.”

Meta began rolling out the new teen accounts to its major user bases in the US, Canada, UK and Australia on Tuesday. The company expects all users to have the revamped teen accounts before the end of 2025.