STARTING today, Instagram accounts belonging to users under 18 years old in the city-state will have more restrictive settings by default as the app faces growing pressure to protect children online.
Instagram users in Singapore suspected to be underage will be prompted to confirm their age by providing photo identification or submitting a video selfie.
The move, part of a global clean-up of accounts belonging to users who have lied about their age, was first rolled out in the United States and Britain in late 2024 in response to global pressure to safeguard young users from addiction, cyberbullying and harmful content.
Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg, in particular, has faced criticism as a wave of US state attorneys in 2023 accused Meta of hooking children on its apps without mitigating its risks.
Instagram’s Teen Account settings – such as being invisible to strangers and receiving messages only from people they follow – will kick in if users cannot prove their age.
Videos of people fighting, promoting cosmetic procedures, violent movie scenes and other sensitive content will also be kept off the feeds of teen accounts.
Tara Hopkins, Meta’s global director of public policy for Instagram and Threads, said the update, which is being progressively pushed to users in Asia, will significantly change the experience on the app for millions of users worldwide.
The measures aim to assure parents that children online will have a safer experience and move away from relying on age declarations as the main way of telling a user’s age, Hopkins said.
Instagram uses a real-time facial scanning technology developed by age verification tech company Yoti, which she said while not perfect, marks the best in class for the technology. — The Straits Times/ANN
