By Michaela Gordoni
Despite Instagram’s ongoing efforts to assure parents its app is safe for teens, online safety company Bark says it’s not enough.
Meta’s latest announcement says its Teen Accounts are expanding globally on Instagram, Facebook and Messenger. These accounts will have filtered content, have limited DM access and get automatic enrollment in stricter settings.
In the same week, hackers targeted Instagram accounts by successfully tricking Meta’s AI support chatbot into granting access.
Meta hired a tech audit company, Alice, to review its teen accounts. Alice found two issues, which Meta fixed before it released a report of the audit.
“That’s not an independent audit. That’s a restaurant paying a critic to review itself — and then editing the review before it goes live,” Bark said.
“The assessment looked only at content filtering in a controlled test environment. It did not evaluate direct messages, grooming pathways, algorithmic rabbit holes, compulsive design or what happens when a kid lies about their age to create an account,” the company said.
Related: Instagram Takes Steps to Improve Teen Safety. Will They Work?
Meta said its teen accounts showed 68% less mature content than a “leading competitor,” which is unnamed, so the comparison can’t be verified.
Stephen Balkam, founder and CEO of the Family Online Safety Institute, said Meta’s new default settings are good because nine out of ten teens never touch their safety settings.
“Defaulting to safe and appropriate settings is a great way to raise the safety floor for families, kids, and teens,” he explained. Parental customization is “another added level of choice around safer online experiences.”
However, teen protections can only be put in place when Instagram knows its user is a teen. However, the system relies on users truthfully entering their birthdate, which is easy to lie about.
A study found that nearly 60% of 13- to 15-year-olds in Teen Accounts still reported seeing unsafe content or received unwanted messages in the past six months. Last year, another report found that less than one in five of its teen safety features were fully functional, and two-thirds (64%) were “either substantially ineffective or no longer exist.”
If parents allow their children to use Instagram, they should inform them how the platforms actually work — they are designed to keep you clicking. Parents should not rely on Meta’s safety measures and should use their own tools or monitor activity to keep their children safe. Parents should also review the privacy settings to make sure their children are staying safe.
Read Next: Facebook’s ‘Instagram Kids’ Project Tabled After Safety Concerns Arise
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