San Francisco (AFP)

Instagram will now ask users to indicate their age when they create an account, to prevent children under 13 from coming to the Facebook photo and video application, according to a statement released Wednesday.

This information "will help us ensure the safety of young users and facilitate a more appropriate age experience," said the California subsidiary.

The application is aligned with Facebook, Snapchat and TikTok, which also require the anniversary date when a new registration.

But Instagram does not mention children who are potentially already among the hundreds of millions of network members.

Nor does it mention any age or identity verification process, as it exists on other sensitive applications. It remains a priori possible to enter a false date of birth.

The date of birth will not appear on the profile. If a user has linked their Facebook and Instagram accounts, the date given to the social networking giant will be automatically communicated to the platform.

Instagram plans to use this additional data to "personalize the experience", with educational programs aimed at young people on privacy protection settings.

The app further enhances the privacy of messages, allowing users to choose who can add them to newsgroups (anyone or just the contacts they added to their list of followers).

The networks popular with young people, such as Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube or Instagram, are regularly criticized for failing to sufficiently protect children from online predators, or, more generally, the psychological risks associated with the use of these platforms (comparison with others, harassment ...).

Instagram has recently tightened its regulations to fight against the circulation of content likely to encourage suicide or self-harm.

The app banned photos and then drawings and illustrations on the subject after a father accused him of responsibility for the suicide of his 14-year-old daughter. The teenager had, according to him, consulted a lot of contents on this subject.

For the last few months, Instagram has also been testing private "likes" in several countries: the network masks the number of "likes" (approvals) collected by the content posted by the users, in order to reduce the social pressure.

© 2019 AFP