Rédaction Africa Links 24 with Guardian Nigeria
Published on 2024-01-26 04:48:48
Meta, the parent company of popular social media platforms Facebook and Instagram, has recently announced new features aimed at increasing safety measures for teenagers using their platforms. These measures are designed to restrict unwanted messages and provide more control for parents over their teens’ online activities.
The new policy builds upon an earlier restriction that prevented adults over the age of 19 from messaging teens who are not following them. Now, Meta has taken an additional step to turn off teens’ ability to receive direct messages (DMs) from anyone they do not follow or are not connected to on Instagram, including other teens, by default. This means that only people they already follow or are connected to can send them messages or add them to group chats, providing teens and their parents with greater confidence that they will not hear from unknown individuals in their DMs.
In addition to these changes, Meta has also enhanced parental controls, allowing guardians to approve or deny changes in default privacy settings made by their teens. Previously, guardians were only notified of these changes but could not take any action. These measures aim to give parents more oversight and involvement in their teens’ online experiences.
These new default settings will apply to all teens under the age of 16, or under 18 in certain countries. Notifications will be sent to existing users on Instagram, informing them of the changes to their message settings. Similar changes to teens’ default settings are also being implemented on Messenger, where under 16s, or under 18 in certain countries, will only receive messages from Facebook friends or people they are connected to through phone contacts.
These updates follow Meta’s launch of parental supervision on Instagram in March 2022. Since then, the company has continued to add new features to help parents be more involved in their teens’ online experiences, including the ability to set time limits and schedule breaks, as well as notifications for when their teen blocks or reports someone, and when their teen changes their settings.
Overall, these new measures demonstrate Meta’s commitment to creating a safer online environment for teenagers using their platforms, while also providing parents with greater control and oversight.
Read the original article on The Guardian
