Instagram Increases Safety Measures For Teenagers, Overhauls Advertising Methods

(RTTNews) - Amidst increasing demand for privacy, social media platforms are presenting new rules to protect user-information from advertisers. On Tuesday, Instagram announced that its platform will see a complete overhaul of its advertising methods focusing on the underaged users. The changes will be global and apply to Facebook and Messenger as well. As per the new rules, Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram advertisers will only be able to target users under the age of 18 based on their sex, location, and age. This marks a huge shift from the previous policy where the social media platforms used to track personal preference pointers through web search history and app usages. "We already give people ways to tell us that they would rather not see ads based on their interests or on their activities on other websites and apps, such as through controls within our ad settings," Instagram wrote in the announcement blog. "But we've heard from youth advocates that young people may not be well equipped to make these decisions. We agree with them, which is why we're taking a more precautionary approach in how advertisers can reach young people with ads." As per the new regulations, Instagram will notify the users as soon as they turn 18, about what kind of advertisers can reach them. The users will get to choose their ads in the ads settings. Another upgrade in the policy is the way the company is going to handle teenagers. The users under the age of 16 will have their accounts set to private by default. "Wherever we can, we want to stop young people from hearing from adults they don't know, or that they don't want to hear from. Historically, we asked young people to choose between a public account or a private account when they signed up for Instagram, but our recent research showed that they appreciate a more private experience." The company added the introduction of of another algorithm that will protect the teens from suspicious users. The blog said, "We've developed a new technology that will allow us to find accounts that have shown potentially suspicious behavior and stop those accounts from interacting with young people's accounts." Any account, deemed 'suspicious', will show a flag notifying other users and the teen managed accounts will not be shown in the person's suggestions. These new changes, although look noble on paper, have been taken with a pinch of salt by those who have been critical about the attitude of Mark Zuckerburg's company. According to them, the step might be just a ploy for the company to get around the growing demand for user-information safety protocols.