1 week Ago By Kamya Pandey
Meta has announced plans to extend its teen accounts to Facebook and Messenger after creating teen accounts on Instagram in September last year. These accounts for Facebook and Messenger will first roll out in the US, UK, Australia, and Canada, and later to other regions in the world. Instagram’s teen accounts have built-in protections such as a limit on who can contact the users of such accounts and the content that the user sees.
These accounts also have 60-minute time limits, after which the user gets a notification to leave the app, and parental supervision features.Besides launching the teen accounts feature on Facebook and Messenger, Meta has also expanded the protections for teenagers on Instagram. This includes restricting under-16 users from conducting a live stream via Instagram Live unless they have parental permission.
The platform will also require teens to get parental permission to turn off the feature that blurs images containing suspected nudity in DMs.How does Meta identify teens?If someone attempts to change their age from under-18 to 18 or above, Instagram asks them to verify their age by:uploading IDsRecording a video selfieAsking mutual followers who are above 18 to verify their age (called social vouching)In November last year, Bloomberg reported that the company was planning to release an artificial intelligence (AI) tool that can detect when a minor is lying about their age. The AI system would detect the user’s age through their follower list, content they interact with, and ‘happy birthday’ posts made by friends.
The company reportedly plans to automatically categorise people detected as minors for restrictive teen account settings.The steps seem to have had some success: according to the UK Communications Regulator Ofcom, between 2023 and 2024, there has been an increase in platforms asking children in the 8-17 age group to prove their age. “This was more common among 8-12-year-olds, increasingly so on Facebook (16% to 39%), Instagram (17% to 32%),” the regulator said.
Why it matters:These developments matter in the context of the increasing call for stricter protections for children on the internet. In Australia, for instance, the government has decided to implement a social media ban for anyone under the age of 16. Reports suggest that the UK is also considering a similar step.
On the other hand, India has sought to restrict platforms from processing the data of anyone under the age of 18 without verifiable parental consent under its Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDP Act, 2023). The act also prohibits platforms from tracking or carrying out behavioural monitoring of anyone under the age of 18. The Indian government seeks to operationalise the DPDP Act through the Draft Digital Personal Data Protection Rules (DPDP Rules, 2025).
These draft rules state that platforms will have to verify the age and identity of the parent when obtaining verifiable parental consent for processing the data of an under-18 user.To do so, platforms can either rely on information that the parent voluntarily gives them, they can rely on their existing database of information if the parent is a user of their platform, and can also verify the parent’s age and identity through a legally authorised entity or government body. Given all these developments, Meta’s changes to its platforms seem to be in line with the requirements of seeking parental consent for how children function on the internet.
In February this year, the company expanded Teen Accounts on Instagram to India.Also read:Instagram Rolls Out Teen Accounts in India Amid Draft DPDP Rules: What’s Changing for Young Users?How the Draft Data Protection Rules 2025 Will Change Children’s Data Processing in IndiaMeta Rolls Out Teen Instagram Accounts: Stricter Privacy, Messaging Limits, and Parental Control FeaturesThe post Meta Rolls Out Teen Accounts Feature On Facebook and Messenger appeared first on MEDIANAMA..
