Instagram Teen Accounts: Meta Shifts Responsibility to Parents

The real challenge is systemic. Social media platforms must be redesigned with built-in safety features that don't depend on parental oversight.

Sep 22, 2024

Meta Has Put the Onus of Online Safety on Parents

Three years after whistleblower Frances Haugen revealed Meta's negligence in addressing Instagram's harmful effects on teenage girls, the company has introduced Instagram Teen Accounts—a new service with built-in protections for users aged 13 to 18. These accounts limit who can contact teens and control the content they encounter, requiring parental permission for adjustments under age 16. While this is a step forward, several concerns remain.

Meta's announcement follows years of reputational damage, during which time the company dragged its feet, arguing that research showing negative effects of social media use on mental health was inconclusive. However, Meta is now facing legal action by 41 states and the District of Columbia. Additionally, almost 40 states have backed the United States surgeon general's proposal to slap warning labels on social media platforms, similar to those used for alcohol and tobacco products. There is also a growing civic movement advocating for stricter phone-use regulations for younger users.

The timing of this move suggests that Meta might be trying to preempt further regulatory pressure and legal challenges while attempting to get brownie points for doing the right thing. This raises the question of whether Meta's motivations are genuinely about user safety or primarily about deflecting criticism and avoiding additional legal repercussions.

This question is particularly important because it ties into broader issues with social media platforms. By design, these platforms often incentivize negative behaviors to boost engagement. The network effect keeps young users hooked, making it unlikely they will comply with restrictive features unless everyone is affected. Yet, rather than rethinking the platform for safe and positive use by all users, Meta has earmarked a subsection of accounts for limited use while shifting the responsibility for online safety from itself onto harried parents.

This approach is problematic on two counts. For families with strong trust bonds, these controls might be redundant. In families where trust is lacking, these controls may actually exacerbate tensions between parents and children, turning safety measures into a source of conflict rather than solutions. Consequently, this approach could contribute to more stress and disagreements within families.

Moreover, the assumption that parents can effectively manage their children's social media use reflects a developed-world perspective, where digital literacy among older generations is relatively high. In countries like India, where parents are often seen lining up for technical support from their own children, these parental controls may be less effective. Many Indian parents, especially in rural areas, also lack the familiarity with social media necessary to effectively monitor or regulate their children's online activities. Finally, for working-class parents, who may already struggle with time constraints, keeping up with their children's online activities can be an even greater challenge.

This approach could then further widen the gap between tech-savvy and privileged families and those less familiar with digital tools and working-class families, creating a disparity in online safety and potentially reinforcing existing inequalities.

This disparity in digital literacy highlights how policies designed for Western contexts do not translate well to regions with different social dynamics and technological adoption rates.

Already, Meta's overall enforcement of its content policies varies between Western and developing markets, with the latter receiving less priority, resources, and consequently, less robust protection. There is thus legitimate concern about how Instagram will adjust its policies and resources globally. If Instagram's safety measures are more stringent in developed markets while being more permissive in developing countries, this could exacerbate existing disparities. Furthermore, if the majority of Meta's safety resources are concentrated in Western markets, it could lead to uneven protection across regions.

In all this, what remains unchanged is Meta's business interest in maximizing time spent on its platform. While there are default limits on Teen accounts, the time-related restriction is advisory, not enforced. Teens get a prompt after an hour online, but there's no hard limit, once again shifting responsibility to parents. It's also up to parents to monitor for fake Teen accounts created by adults to bypass controls and contact young users. Where parents are unavailable or unable to enforce these measures, these protections will largely go unenforced.

In conclusion, instead of relying predominantly on parental controls, Meta should consider designing systems with built-in safety features that are effective regardless of parental involvement. This must include not just better content moderation and clearer age-appropriate boundaries, but a systemic rethink of features that promote positive online behavior. These could include implementing platform-wide safety features that benefit all users, not just teens such as algorithmic changes that prioritize positive content and ethical design frameworks. These frameworks would be geared towards encouraging more personal and meaningful connections, moving away from the current emphasis on impersonal broadcasts and virality.

The real challenge is systemic. Social media platforms must be redesigned with built-in safety features that don't depend on parental oversight. Without a fundamental rethink of how these platforms function, young users—especially in vulnerable regions—will remain at risk.