Utah Gov. Spencer Cox likes and dislikes the change to Instagram’s kid policy

Salt Lake City, Utah – As the impact of social media on youth continues to be criticized, particularly by Utah’s top officials, Instagram has taken action by removing accounts belonging to users under the age of 18.

Instagram introduced new “Teen Accounts” with built-in safeguards to ensure a safe online experience for teens. As an example of these pre-existing safeguards, teen accounts are set to private by default. This feature will be implemented so that only accounts that the teen follows or is already connected to will be able to receive private messages. We will restrict access to explicit content like fight videos and those that promote cosmetic surgery.

Along with a sleep mode that disables notifications and auto-replies from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m., the new accounts will also feature notifications that remind kids to take a break after 60 minutes of app use.

Meta admitted that teenagers might provide false information about their age and promised to make it more difficult for them to do so in some situations, such as when creating a new account using an adult’s birthdate. Meta added that it is also developing tools to detect adolescent accounts and block them automatically.

A parent’s three main worries, according to Meta’s head of product Naomi Gleit, are that her adolescent is exposed to inappropriate content, is being contacted by unknown parties, and spends too much time on the app. “Those three concerns are the main focus of teen accounts.”

Former Utah governor Spencer Cox, who has been vocal in her criticism of social media in recent months, praised the new teen accounts but urged Meta to step up its game.

“A lot of these new features reflect our recently passed laws, showing that there is a rising awareness of the responsibility that social media companies have towards their younger users,” exclaimed Cox. We feel these measures fall short of adequately protecting Utah children from online dangers, notwithstanding their great intentions. We urge Meta, along with all other social media sites, to keep innovating and enacting stricter safeguards for children.

Utah revised its social media legislation earlier this year, making it mandatory for companies to validate users’ ages and imposing various limitations on accounts belonging to minors. Opposition to the law came from social media corporations, which challenged it in court by claiming it violated their constitutional rights.

A federal judge has temporarily halted the law’s implementation as it makes its way through the legal system; the original scheduled implementation date was October 1. While applauding Utah’s efforts to safeguard youth, the judge ruled that social media companies have a “substantially likely” chance of winning their constitutional breach lawsuit.

Meta took the initiative to modify its policies regarding accounts held by minors, even if the law in Utah was a setback. According to Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes, the revisions represent significant progress. However, he agrees with Cox that social media platforms still need to do more to comply with Utah’s social media law.

“We will continue to prioritize the well-being of Utah’s children by conducting thorough investigations, pursuing legal action, and advocating for strict safety regulations and safe online spaces,” Reyes stated.

Instagram is introducing a new Teen Account and a function to let parents keep an eye on their children. This new feature will give parents more control over their children’s accounts by allowing them to monitor what their children are looking at, restricting their use to certain times of the day, or even creating daily time limitations. Even though parents can’t read their children’s messages, they can see who their adolescents are conversing with on the app.