Instagram just made it harder for monsters to hunt teenagers using the social network. The service is launching a series of preventive measures to keep teenagers protected, especially restrictions on direct messages. Adults are now unable to send messages to anyone under the age of 18 who does not follow them. The restriction works through a combination of the user’s stated age when they sign up, as well as machine learning that predicts people’s age – hopefully, it is reliable enough to prevent some DMs from escaping through the cracks.
Teenagers themselves will also receive safety warnings in their DMs if an adult they are exchanging messages with is sending lots of friend requests and messages to minors under the age of 18. Get one and you will have options to interrupt the conversation, block the adult openly, report them or impose restrictions. The warnings will start appearing in “some countries” in March and are expected to be more widely available soon after.
It will also be more difficult for elusive adults to find these teenagers in the first place. Instagram will soon begin exploring ways to prevent adults with potentially questionable behavior from interacting with teenagers, such as removing teen accounts from Suggestions, Moments and Explore. The social media giant can automatically hide comments from these adults in public posts as well. You should see the first examples of these changes in the coming weeks.
Instagram was already encouraging teenagers to use private accounts and updated their Parent Guide with new privacy and security tools.
The new measures are a recognition that teenagers face a relatively unique set of dangers on Instagram, and that there is a lot that teenagers and their parents can do to prevent unpleasant people from approaching. It is unclear how well DM and discovery restrictions will work in practice, but they can be worthwhile if they discourage some creeps and promote a more cautious approach for teenagers themselves.