Tech Desk 
Feb 11, 2025
Instagram has officially announced that the platform is introducing its teen accounts feature, which has extra protective measures for safety for users in India.
The company introduced teen accounts last year in the United States (US), United Kingdom (UK), Canada, and Australia. Meta migrated accounts of Instagram users who are under the age of 16 to these new types of accounts with default restrictions.
These teen accounts are private accounts by default and have messaging limitations, content controls, interaction restrictions, time limit reminders, and sleep mode.
In a blog post, Instagram Director of Public Policy India, Natasha Jog stated: “At Meta, creating a safer and more responsible digital environment is a top priority. With the expansion of Instagram Teen Accounts to India, we are strengthening protections, enhancing content controls, and empowering parents while ensuring a safer experience for teens.”
The teen account setup means that users under 16 will be required the permission of parents or guardians to change some settings in their accounts.
Additionally, parents of users over 16 will have an option to turn on the supervision of the teen’s account.
Parents can view who their children are interacting with, but they can’t see the message. They can also set daily usage limits and block the app during specific hours.
Instagram content limitations for teens
On the content level, Meta only allows users to get messages from people they are connected to. For the connected people criteria, Instagram considers if the sender is friends with the receiver on any of the Meta platforms or if they have interacted on DMs before but don’t follow each other.
Moreover, Meta is filtering out offensive words and phrases from a teen’s account automatically.
Meta said that it is also using methods, such as ID verification and recording video selfies for user age verifications, as teens often lie about their age on various platforms.
