Instagram expands teen accounts to Hong Kong; new measures aim to protect users under 16

The platform will begin placing young users into teen accounts, which will allow adults to oversee their online interactions, content consumption and time spent on the platform.

However, supervisors will not be able to read the content of users’ direct messages to allow them some degree of privacy, according to Meta, Instagram’s parent company.

The feature has already been launched in some parts of the world, including Australia, the United States, and Canada, since September last year. It is now expanding to Hong Kong and the rest of Asia-Pacific.

What Hong Kong students, psychologist think of Instagram’s new Teen Accounts

The head of Instagram at Meta, Adam Mosseri, acknowledged the ongoing challenge of age verification and admitted the platform was still seeking ways to prevent teens from falsifying their details.

“It depends on the jurisdiction. There are a number of different ways we try to verify age ... none of them are foolproof,” Mosseri said.

He cited methods such as ID card uploads and face detection while emphasising the company’s focus on collaborating with operating systems to improve verification.

Noting the common practice of teens having multiple Instagram accounts for different uses, he said the new service would continue to allow users to hold several teen accounts to explore their interests.

While he did not specify the number of teen users in the region, he said the change would affect “millions”.

The new feature has drawn mixed reactions.

Clarisse Poon, a 15-year-old student at St Paul’s Co-educational College, expressed worries about the effectiveness of the parental supervision requirement.

“Most teens, knowing they will be supervised by their parents, will use fake birthdays [to start non-restricted accounts],” Clarisse said.

She added that she herself had previously bypassed previous age restrictions. “Teen accounts will prove ineffective if this loophole remains unresolved.”

Clarisse added that although she felt the new feature would better protect her from explicit content and help boost her productivity by reducing screen time, she found other aspects “unnecessary and arbitrary”.

“Only allowing teens to receive messages from accounts they’ve previously connected with or changing all existing Instagram teen accounts to private is quite unnecessary, in my opinion,” she said.

“Given that Instagram is a common tool used to connect with different people, such a setting may not be favoured by teens.”

However, having seen many teens exposed to highly sensitive or explicit content on Instagram, Clarisse said she believed the platform’s algorithm could do more to generate child-friendly content for teen accounts and not just rely on controls.

She added that she disliked the sleep mode.

“If the only free time I have is at night after 10pm – the time when Instagram mutes all notifications – I would feel quite bothered by it,” she said.

Dr Adrian Low, president of the Hong Kong Association of Psychology, urged parents to use the new service with care and avoid breaching their children’s trust, which could create conflict.

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“The most important thing is to ensure good communication with your children,” he said. “First, stand in their shoes to show them you understand how they would want to spend time on these platforms, and then explain your concerns about the danger [of not being supervised].”

Ideally, parents and children should explore the new feature together and jointly decide how to use it, he added.

“This new experience is designed to better support parents and give them peace of mind knowing their teens are safe with the right protections in place,” Meta said.

Here are the major highlights of some safety features that will be automatically applied to teen accounts:

• All existing and new accounts of users aged under 16 will be set to private by default.

• Teen account holders will have to approve any new followers before the latter can message, tag or mention them in any content. This is to limit unwanted communication from strangers and potential risks. The adult supervisors of the account will not be able to read the content of direct messages.

• Instagram will activate the most restrictive settings of its anti-bullying feature, Hidden Words, filtering out offensive words and phrases from comments and direct message requests sent to teen accounts.

• Sensitive content, such as those depicting violence or promoting cosmetic procedures, among other topics, will be screened out in the “explore” and “reels” sections.

• Teens will be sent reminders to take a break after 60 minutes of daily use to help users manage their screen time.

• A sleep mode will also be activated, with all notifications muted between 10pm and 7am each day.