Instagram is getting more serious about curbing underage use.
As of December 4th, the social network will start asking for
your date of birth when you sign up, and will use the date from your Facebook
profile if you're using that. This will help the service dissuade children
under 13 from using the app (and thus violating COPPA), but
will also let it create "age-appropriate and safer experiences" like
child-oriented account control tutorials and privacy settings. You can expect
those in the months ahead.
Your
birthday and age won't be visible to other users.
You'll
also be glad to hear that Instagram is tightening controls for direct messages.
It's rolling out an option that will limit incoming direct messages and group
invitations to the people you follow, instead of the all-or-nothing approach
from before. Finally, you won't have to put up with spammers adding you to
groups in the vain hope that you'll click their links. These changes should
arrive in the "coming weeks."
The
move follows a Facebook promise from last year that also included more
proactive reviews of suspected underage accounts. We wouldn't be surprised if
this is only mildly effective -- kids routinely lie in age checks, after all.
It might discourage kids from signing up when they simply didn't realize there
was a minimum age, though. And let's be honest -- this is partly a defense
against regulators worried that Facebook and its brands aren't doing enough to
protect kids' privacy.
While
Instagram told Reuters that
advertising wasn't a main reason for the age check, it won't be surprising if
this enables marketing that wasn't always feasible before, such as alcohol ads
for people over the legal drinking age. That could be a problem for children
who fib about their age and start seeing ads for scotch, but Instagram could
then blame the users for misrepresenting themselves.
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