Instagram now makes accounts for users under 16 private by default

In a bid to give young people a safer, more private experience, Facebook-owned Instagram announced that it is defaulting young people into private accounts when they join the social media platform. So starting this week, everyone who is under 16 years old (or under 18 in certain countries) will be defaulted into a private account when they join Instagram

Private accounts let people control who sees or responds to their content. If you have a private account, people have to follow you to see your posts, Stories and Reels unless you choose to allow others to reshare your content. People also can’t comment on your content in those places, and they won’t see your content at all in places like Explore or hashtags.

Instagram says that it believes that private accounts are the best way to stop young people from hearing from adults they don’t know, or that they don’t want to hear from.

The social media firm said that historically young people had the choice between a public account or a private account when they signed up for Instagram. But a recent research showed that these young people appreciate a more private experience. During testing, eight out of ten young people accepted the private default settings during sign-up.

As for young people who already have a public account on Instagram, the company says it will show them a notification highlighting the benefits of a private account and explaining how to change their privacy settings. They will be given a choice to switch to a public account or keep their current account public if they wish.

Instagram also said it would be introducing two new initiatives to augment the safe experience for young people. They are:

1. Making it harder for potentially suspicious accounts to find young people.

Instagram says it has developed new technology that will allow it find accounts that have shown potentially suspicious behavior and stop those accounts from interacting with young people’s accounts. Instagram refers to accounts as “potentially suspicious behavior”, when these accounts belonging to adults may have recently been blocked or reported by a young person for example.

Using this technology, now Instagram won’t show young people’s accounts in Explore, Reels or ‘Accounts Suggested For You’ to these adults. If they find young people’s accounts by searching for their usernames, they won’t be able to follow them. They also won’t be able to see comments from young people on other people’s posts, nor will they be able to leave comments on young people’s posts.

2. Limiting the options advertisers have to reach young people with ads.

Starting in a few weeks, Instagram will only allow advertisers to target ads to people under 18 (or older in certain countries) based on their age, gender and location. This means that previously available targeting options, like those based on interests or on their activity on other apps and websites, will no longer be available to advertisers. These changes will be global and apply to Instagram, Facebook and Messenger.