Adults suspected of harassment minors they will find it more difficult to act Facebook and instagram. Aimcompany that owns both social networksannounced the changes to its privacy policies in a statement on its blog this Monday. privacy will affect all users under the age of 16 or 18, depending on each country.
These changes will make your settings more private by default and limit who can see your profiles, posts, friend lists and other personal details.
Another way to try to protect underage users would be for both Facebook and Instagram to detect suspicious adults. What does it mean? both Apps Accounts belonging to adults and blocked or reported by young users will be identified as suspicious. These profiles will no longer appear in suggestions suggesting new friends.
In addition, Instagram is investigating whether these suspicious users are unable to send private messages to underage users. tyranny. These measures do not take into account what would happen if this potential harassment situation occurs between users who are both underage.
Meta is also working with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) to design a platform open to other tech companies serving young people to prevent their private photos from circulating online without their consent.
Mental impact on minors
This decision comes more than a year after Instagram changed its policies to have young users’ newly registered accounts private by default.
The social media giant then had to take action after it suffered its worst. reputation crisis when it reveals its effect on internal documents sanity Reports leaked by the ex-engineer of adolescents Frances Haugen It revealed that the company was aware, among other abuses, that Instagram was producing “increasing levels”. anxiety Y depression‘ and for 32% of girls, ‘their relationship with their bodies deteriorates.’ The company knew of this toxic effect but did nothing to reverse it.
In the face of these and other scandals, user protests have forced Instagram to abandon the idea of creating a version of the platform for kids under 13, a project they canceled in September last year.
While increasing pressure has led Meta to take further steps to protect the experience of its younger users, there is reason to believe such a move is merely a commercial gimmick. Last year, a study by different NGOs pointed out that both Facebook and Instagram continue to monitor the online activities of their users under the age of 18 to drive personalized ads, something they had a priori restricted in July 2021. It accounts for over 90% of Meta’s business.