Under fire from critics, Meta, Instagram’s parent company, announced several measures this week to strengthen protection of minors’ accounts. This is a major update, designed to give parents peace of mind “, explained Antigone Davis, vice-president of the American group, from San Francisco.
With the “teen account”, the profiles of 13-17 year olds will automatically be private, inaccessible to potential predators, violent videos will be blocked, offensive terms too, and parents will be able to monitor their activity.
When Inoxtag educates teenagers
In violation of legislation on minors
A weak point of all platforms, age control should be more effective, promises Meta. A user pretending to be an adult, if detected, will have to provide an identity document and a video selfie. The update of the application will be effective before the end of the year. There was an urgent need to react. “Insta” is the subject, along with Facebook, of an investigation procedure by the European Commission.
The two networks of the American company Meta are potentially in violation of legislation on minors, their algorithms being strongly suspected of causing dependency phenomena and cognitive confinement. In particular the so-called “rabbit hole” effect. The expression may raise a smile, but it defines the spiral that leads a gullible user to only be offered conspiracy videos, for example.
The counteroffensive is global. In October 2023, some forty American states filed a complaint against Meta, accusing its social networks of harming the ” mental and physical health of youth ” Cases of addiction, harassment and eating disorders have multiplied. During his hearing before Congress in Washington in January, CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologized to the parents of victims: ” Sorry for everything you’ve been through. » Australia, meanwhile, is considering setting a minimum age for using the networks.
