Instagram is rolling out its newest security feature aimed at improving the privacy and security of children, Instagram Teens. Anyone under 18 will have their accounts set to private mode by default.

This means that the only people who can message or tag a teenager are accounts that the teenager already follows. Random people on the internet, including scammers and predators, can no longer cold message any children on Instagram.

This also sets sensitive content filtering to its most extreme settings, banning violent and sexual content and misinformation. It has an automatic sleep mode that silences notifications at night. It will also post a notification that users should take a break from Instagram for at least 60 minutes per day.

For any user under 16, Instagram automatically gives the parents a supervisor role, allowing them to monitor their kids’ activity. If you need to monitor an older teen’s app, you just have to turn on the supervisor role.

New accounts that are under 18 and existing teenage accounts will be automatically moved to Instagram Teens starting in January 2025.

Originally, Meta (Instagram’s parent company) planned on releasing a second app specifically for teenagers but scrapped the idea. The current version is seamlessly integrated into the regular Instagram.

Instagram Teens combines AI with its age verification systems to find the accounts of teenagers pretending to be adults. This way, your kid can’t just lie about their age to use the less safe version of Instagram.

Since apps like Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok are usable by children, their security practices need to be adequate to avoid lawsuits. Hundreds of separate lawsuits have already been levied at Google, Meta, TikTok, and other social media companies for multiple failures to protect children’s privacy.

Last year alone, 33 US states, including New York and California, sued social media companies over their inadequate privacy features. This pressured Meta to release a secure version of its apps intended for younger users. This external pressure resulted in a significantly safer teen-friendly Instagram app.