“Instagram” provides parents with a long-awaited monitoring tool
The social network "Instagram" announced on Tuesday the addition of new features to the parental control tool that allow parents or legal representatives to more directly supervise the activities of their minor children.
The new feature now provides parents and guardians the ability to send invitations to young teenagers offering to monitor their accounts.
Teens must accept the request to activate the tool.
Prior to today, the ability to turn on parental controls was restricted to teens with accounts, an option that has been available since March in the United States.
"It is very important for us to develop tools that respect the privacy and independence of young people, while at the same time involving parents in the experience," said Clotilde Briand, Public Affairs Program Officer at Meta (the parent company of Facebook and Instagram) in France.
The new tool will enable parents to limit screen time by setting daily application usage limits (from 15 minutes to two hours) or by scheduling breaks.
Young people can also inform their parents or legal representatives if they are exposed to content that does not comply with the Instagram rules (incitement to hatred or violence, nudity, etc.).
Parents and guardians can also access their children's contact list on Instagram, and see the identities of their followers or the list of people the children follow.
These features are scheduled to be available by the end of June in France, Germany, Britain, Ireland, Japan, Canada and Australia, as well as in the United States, and will become available in the rest of the world by the end of this year.
It is also possible to connect from Instagram to a family information center that provides expert advice and information related to supervision.
The first version of this platform was launched last March and was intended for American users.
It will also provide parental controls for the virtual reality headset "Oculus Quest" produced by "Meta".
US House of Representatives and child protection groups frequently criticize Instagram's harmful effects on young users.
The image of "Instagram" and its parent network, Facebook, now called "Meta Platforms", was tarnished by leaks revealed in the fall of 2021 by former Facebook employee Frances Hogan, based on internal correspondence.
These documents show that Facebook administrators were aware of some of the risks faced by underage users, especially in terms of the mental health of some girls whose ideal body image is established through a torrent of images presented to them.
Instagram has since sought to make pledges to protect teens, as have other platforms popular with young adults, and TikTok last week announced new features aimed at limiting screen time for its underage users.
Follow our latest local and sports news and the latest political and economic developments via Google news