Meta announces new teen account safety features on Instagram

Meta announced on 15 October 2024 that it will introduce new default privacy and safety settings for Instagram accounts belonging to users under 18, including private accounts by default, restrictions on who can message teens, limits on sensitive content in Explore and Reels, and a requirement for parental approval to change privacy settings for users under 16. The changes are part of Meta's response to regulatory pressure across multiple jurisdictions and aim to reduce unsolicited contact from adult strangers, with the features rolling out in the United States, United Kingdom, European Union, Canada and Australia over the coming months.

Platform-level controls that limit who can initiate contact reduce the surface area for abuse but do not detect harm within permitted conversations or in cross-platform interactions that originate elsewhere. Anti-grooming and anti-sextortion detection that monitors the content and cadence of direct-message exchanges offers a second line of defence: Guardii, backed by Startmate and operating as a Meta Business Partner, identifies coercion, escalation and sustained targeting patterns in real time across Instagram and other platforms, blocking hostile messages before they reach the young person and surfacing a child at acute risk to a parent, school counsellor or safeguarding professional, providing intervention capability that complements Meta's access controls with real-time threat detection where the conversation itself is the risk.