Instagram has introduced new Teen Accounts for kids under the age of 16, aimed at protecting teenagers and giving parents more control.

In one of the biggest changes to the platform, Australian teenagers between the ages of 13 and 17 will be automatically transitioned to the new Teen Accounts, which carry built-in protections.

It comes after the Australian Federal Government announced kids under the age of 14 could be banned from social media, under legislation set to be introduced this year.

Here are the most important things you need to know about new Instagram Teen Accounts:

• Teen Accounts are private: By default the accounts of teens under the age of 16 will be private, the teen will need to accept new follows. People who don’t follow them can’t see or interact with their content. This applies to all teens under 16 who already have an account or are signing up, and teen sunder 18 when they sign up for Insta.
• Teen Accounts have messaging restrictions: These accounts will have the strictest messaging settings, so they can only be messaged by people they follow or are connected to.
• Sensitive content restrictions: Teen Accounts will automatically be placed on the most restrictive sensitive content control setting. This will limit the type of sensitive content teens see in Explore and Reels.
• Limited interactions: Teens can only be tagged or mentioned by people they follow. The most restrictive version of Instagram’s anti-bullying feature, Hidden Words, will also automatically be turned on. It means offensive words and phrases will be filtered out of their comments and DM requests.
• Time limit reminders: Teens will get notifications telling them to leave the app after 60 minutes each day.
• Sleep mode enabled: Sleep mode will be turned on between 10pm and 7am, which will mute notifications overnight and send auto-replies to DMs.

How can parents approve changes to a teen’s settings?

If your teen is under 16, they will need your permission to use less protective settings. It means they’ll have to set up parental supervision on the app. If you want more oversight over your older teen’s usage, just turn on parental supervision.

Once you have supervision established, you can approve or deny your teenager’s requests to change settings, or allow them to manage the settings themselves. And soon, parents will be able to change these settings directly.

There are also updates to the supervision feature

• Get insights into who your teen is chatting with: You won’t be able to read your teen’s messages, but you will be able to see who they’ve has messaged in the past seven days.
• Set total daily time limits for their Instagram usage: Parents can decide how much time their teen can spend on Instagram each day. Once a teen hits that limit, they’ll no longer be able to access the app.
• Block teens from using Instagram for specific time periods: Parents can choose to block their teens from using Instagram at night, or specific time periods.
• See topics your teen is looking at: Parents can view the age-appropriate topics their teen has chosen to see content from, based on their interests.

But teenagers will just get around the restrictions, won’t they?

According to Meta, because teens can obviously lie about their age, they’re requiring them to verify their age in more places. It also claims it’s building tech to proactively find accounts that belong to teens, even if the account lists an adult birthday.

When is this happening?

Meta says it plans to place teens into Teen Accounts within 60 days in Australia. Teens already using the app will be notified about the changes and they’ll begin to move them into Teen Accounts next week.