The announcement by Instagram this week got instant reaction.
The news is that Instagram is making the accounts of teenagers private, with restrictions that prevent them from getting messages from people they don’t know and putting in place sleep mode from 10pm to 7am to prevent teens from getting notifications during those house and requiring parents permission to change any of these new restrictrtions for teens under 16.
These restrictions all are being praised by parents, social media critics, and they are plenty of them, along with mental health experts and law enforcement.
And most significantly maybe is what the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, which has been critical of Instagram’s lack of protections for minors in the past, is saying.
They are calling the Instagram changes a “major victory” that “can’t be overstated.”
In a statement this week, the organization said this: “Instagram is the #1 platform where sextortion happens. It is being used by millions of teens worldwide. 68% of U.S. teens 15-17 and 59% of teens 13-17 say they use Instagram. Now, all these children are better protected from sexual exploitation.”
In other words, what Instagram is doing to protect kids and make their parents less worried is huge.
And it could lead now to the other social media platforms taking more seriously the impact and the risks and do something about it.
(Photo Getty Images)
Photo: AFP via Getty Images