IFor many teenagers, nstagram, together with the video network Tiktok, has now become the digital equivalent of the schoolyard: news is exchanged, people chat and present themselves. Since it is not only the schoolyard that is open to minors, but the whole world with the associated dangers, there have long been discussions about the protection and supervision of young people on the platforms. Instagram is now relying on the cooperation of parents and children.
The platform, which belongs to the Facebook group Meta, is introducing a “family center” in Germany at the end of the month, in which parents can monitor and also control the activities of their children to a certain extent. This allows them to see and also limit the time their child spends on Instagram. In addition to a general time limit of between 15 minutes and 2 hours Instagram per day, certain times of the day can also be blocked – for example when the child is at school. During a blocking period or when the limit is exhausted, the child cannot use the app on their mobile phone. Parents can also see whose posts the child is subscribed to and who is following the child’s. For example, unseemly contact requests from older users can be noticed.
The parental functions must be activated on both sides. That is, the child must agree in their Instagram app that their parents control. Instagram wants to force discussions between parents and children, said Alexander Kleist, Instagram’s head of political affairs in Germany, of the FAZ “In the end it’s like all youth protection functions: the users have to play along. We can only provide the tools.”
With the design of the parent functions, Instagram explicitly wants to respect the rights and privacy of children, said Kleist. As a result, parents cannot read Direct Messages sent by the child. In addition, parental supervision ends when the child turns 18 and can also be ended by the child at any time. In the US, where the feature has been in place since March, there has been positive feedback from both parents and teenagers, Kleist said.
The functions assume that the child uses Instagram in accordance with the rules – i.e. not giving an incorrect date of birth. This is just as common among teenagers as hiding their own profile using the “private” setting so that their parents cannot find it. Whether the new functions can gain a foothold will therefore depend on how many young people can be persuaded by talking to their parents to use Instagram with “open visors”.
