What you need to know:

• Instagram will make all new accounts private by default for those under 16 years old, as part of a series of changes to improve safety on the platform.
• It will also make it difficult for adult accounts flagged as suspicious to find, follow and interact with younger users.
• The platform will limit targeting to age, gender and location – removing activity and interest-based targeting.

Instagram has introduced a suite of measures to improve safety and privacy for younger users, including default private accounts for those under 16, restrictions on how advertisers target young people, and preventing suspicious adult accounts finding younger users.

In a blog post, the platform said it was dealing with “competing challenges” of creating safe environments for young people versus some young creators wanting to build larger audiences.

The changes come as pressure mounts on social media platforms to introduce greater protections for younger users, with the ABC’s Four Corners program just this week exploring how TikTok is a potential business opportunity, a data harvesting force, and source of mental health issues.

Users under 16 years old (or under 18 in certain countries) will default to a private account when they join.

Instagram also said it has developed technology that will identify accounts that have “shown potentially suspicious behaviour”, for example those that have been blocked by a young person. Those suspicious accounts won’t see young people’s Reels, won’t be able to find younger users, and won’t be able to follow them.

This change will be rolled out in the US, Australia, France, the UK and Japan to start, with more countries to follow.

Change for advertisers mean brands will only be able to target ads to people under 18 based on their age, gender and location – removing interest- or activity-based targeting that takes into account what other apps or websites they visit. 

Josh Machin, Facebook Australia's Head of Policy, said the platform will continue to develop tools that protect teens and the entire community.

Privacy under the microscope

The way major social platforms target children and use their data is increasingly in the sights of regulators and legislators. One recent report found "the global adtech industry holds 72 million data points on the average child by the time they reach the age of 13” .

Closer to home, the federal government is due to release a discussion paper looking at issues it plans to address in a reform of the Privacy Act.

One organisation, Reset Australia, released research showing how Facebook develops and markets younger audiences to advertisers. It set up an advertising account and found Facebook would allow them to advertise to people under 18 with an interest in alcohol – while not allowing the advertising of alcohol specifically.

“Facebook was making money from allowing advertisers to target teenagers based on age-inappropriate interests, such as alcohol, gambling, extreme weight loss, and smoking,” Chris Cooper, Executive Director at Reset Australia, said.

“Reset Australia’s research found Facebook’s own system profiled young people and also approved a series of dubious ads, which included targeting teenagers with cocktail recipes, gambling games, vaping, and extreme weight loss content.”

Cooper said the changes were positive but didn't mean Facebook will stop profiling kids based on "dubious interests", adding the platform's self-regulation remained problematic and that government intervention remained key.