Instagram Will Now Alert Parents If Their Teen Searches for Self-Harm Content
Instagram will soon alert parents if their teen repeatedly searches for content related to suicide and self-harm on the platform. According to an announcement from Meta, these notifications will be available to parents in the US, UK, Australia and Canada who supervise their teens’ accounts starting next week.
As TechCrunch reports, the feature is rolling out amid numerous lawsuits over how Meta and other tech companies failed to protect children and teens on their platforms.
How the new security alerts work
Instagram will use teen search activity to generate alerts. Reported searches include “phrases encouraging suicide or self-harm, phrases suggesting that a teen wants to harm themselves, and terms such as ‘suicide’ or ‘self-harm,'” according to Meta.
Parents will receive alerts via email, SMS or WhatsApp as well as an in-app notification. The message lets parents know that their teen has “repeatedly searched” for content related to suicide or self-harm and includes resources to support teens.
Instagram already blocks searches associated with suicide and self-harm, directing users to resources instead. Although users can post about their personal experiences, Meta’s policies don’t allow content that promotes or glorifies these topics, and Instagram hides content associated with teens (even if it’s someone they follow).
What do you think of it so far?
Enable parental monitoring on Instagram
To receive alerts, parental monitoring must be activated on your teen’s account. Supervision allows parents to set time limits for apps, enable sleep mode, and monitor and manage things like account settings, followers, followed accounts, content topics searched, and app usage. Parental supervision is available for teens ages 13-17, and teens must agree to participate.
To send a supervision invitation to your teen, open the More menu at the bottom left and click Settings. Select Supervision > Create an invitationcheck the information and press Continue. From there, you can copy the invitation to send via any messaging app. Note that teens can decline supervision requests: the feature is optional for both parties.
