Meta’s has been listening to some concerns after all especially now after some pressure.
These changes very well could help parents moderate their teens. Meta’s head of product says these changes address particular 3 concerns in an Npr interview.
Will this be the end of the complaints and concerns geared towards Instagram, probably not.
How many users does IG have that are registered as under 18?
I’m 25 now, but I still always say I was born in the 80s out of habit…
It’s a good step, but it won’t fix things.
as someone from the 80’s I’m offended somehow.
70s checking in, whippersnapper.
Yeah, I always pick 1920 for a b day, even though I’m 45.
Nothing can fix things because teenagers will not cooperate. If Instagram could identify all its teenage users, those users would move to a platform that couldn’t. The only thing the restrictions achieve is a reduction in the market share of the platform with the restrictions.
I think it would be naive to think that they don’t know this already. Not to say that I think you’re making that argument, but that I think the losses are calculated against the benefit of the appearance of care that this move affords them. Sure, these new restrictions and tooling means that some parents will be more willing to allow their teens to engage with the platform, but there’s no way that will outweigh the active user reduction in the targeted age range.
The real benefit is looking like they’re doing stuff in a positive direction in the context of minors. I’m definitely expecting them to point at this move (and its voluntary nature) as an argument against future regulation proposals. Especially the part where they’re ostensibly putting that control in parents’ hands.
I always say 1900 out of habit… I was at least once rejected as too old :D
Lego is serious about those 4-99 age limits, huh?
If I get offered the whole calendar, I will use the whole calendar!
are you a February 29 1900 enjoyer?
That’s ageist. I maintain my god given right to lie about being the oldest person on earth.
Respectable elo.
Nothing beats 1970-01-01.
If you’re 25 now, you were 15 during the early wild west days of smartphone adoption, while we as a society were just figuring that stuff out.
Since that time, the major tech companies that control a big chunk of our digital identities have made pretty big moves at recording family relationships between accounts. I’m a parent in a mixed Android/iOS family, and it’s pretty clear that Apple and Google have it figured out pretty well: child accounts linked to dates of birth that automatically change permissions and parental controls over time, based on age (including severing the parental controls when they turn 18). Some of it is obvious, like billing controls (nobody wants their teen running up hundreds of dollars in microtransactions), app controls, screen time/app time monitoring, location sharing, password resets, etc. Some of it is convenience factor, like shared media accounts/subscriptions by household (different Apple TV+ profiles but all on the same paid subscription), etc.
I haven’t made child accounts for my kids on Meta. But I probably will whenever they’re old enough to use chat (and they’ll want WhatsApp accounts). Still, looking over the parent/child settings on Facebook accounts, it’ll probably be pretty straightforward to create accounts for them, link a parent/child relationship, and then have another dashboard to manage as a parent. Especially if something like Oculus takes off and that’s yet another account to deal with paid apps or subscriptions.
There might even be network effects, where people who have child accounts are limited in the adult accounts they can interact with, and the social circle’s equilibrium naturally tends towards all child accounts (or the opposite, where everyone gets themselves an adult account).
The fact is, many of the digital natives of Gen Alpha aren’t actually going to be as tech savvy as their parents as they dip their toes into the world of the internet. Because they won’t need to figure stuff out on their own to the same degree.
It works well…when a parent makes an account for the express purpose of parental controls. The “issue” are the fake accounts (i.e. “finstas”) that the kids make themselves in which they lie about their age.
Also, side note, Googles child accounts work OK, I would not say they’ve got it on lock. Did you know if you get your kids a debit card and they’re under 13 Google will NOT allow them to add it as their own payment method no matter what consent I’m willing to give to them?
Yea, I had to do a parent sanctioned age-lie to Google so now Google thinks my kids are all 13+ just so I could do the extreme thing of teaching them money responsibilities in an age of digital transactions SMDH
Lol they will the second they get hit with that “you need to get parental consent” screen, that’s how it happened to us all.
The normie services are increasingly tied to real world identities, through verification methods that involve phone numbers and often government-issued IDs. As the regulatory requirements tighten on these services, it’ll be increasingly more difficult to create anonymous/alt accounts. Just because it was easy to anonymously create a new Gmail or a new Instagram account 10 years ago doesn’t mean it’s easy today. It’s a common complaint that things like an Oculus requires a Meta account that requires some tedious verification.
I don’t think it’ll ever be perfect, but it will probably be enough for the network effects of these types of services to be severely dampened (and then a feedback loop where the difficult-to-use-as-a-teen services have too much friction and aren’t being used, so nobody else feels it is worth the effort to set up). Especially if teens’ parent-supervised accounts are locked to their devices, in an increasingly cloud-reliant hardware world.
…?
For those “special” websites
well at least it’s better than trying to mass scan all of your private conversations (encrypted or not), not that the EU wouldn know anything about that of course…
More than you can imagine. I haven’t found a student in my high school without IG.
Yes they have an IG but I doubt the birthdate they gave is their real one.
Can confirm. I am 53 year old acc to IG xD