Online safety measures and the upcoming US general election have been high priorities for social media apps recently, here’s an overview of what changes have been made:
Instagram’s new privacy measures:
Instagram has just rolled out a series of new privacy measures aimed at protecting under-18’s, set to give parents more control of their children’s accounts.
Starting this week, ‘teen accounts’ will be introduced across the UK, Canada and Australia. New features include making their content inaccessible to users who don’t follow them and requiring them to manually approve all new followers.
While users aged 15 and over can adjust these setting themselves, younger teens ages 13–15- will need a parent or guardians’ approval to make any changes. Parents will also be able to monitor their children’s Instagram activity, including who they message and the topics they’re interested in. However, they won’t have access to the content of each message.
TikTok’s election coverage:
Following Suzy Loftus, head of USDS Trust & Safety on TikTok, announcing efforts to protect the platform’s integrity during the US election, TikTok has expanded its Elections Centre resources.
These updates include detailed information on how and where to vote, along with real-time election results provided by the Associated Press.
Additionally, TikTok is giving users more control over the content they see. A new feature will allow users to fine-tune their For You Page by adjusting how much of a particular topic they want to see, with the option for some users to block all political content.
YouTube safety features:
YouTube has introduced new tools to enhance safety for teens, as outlined by James Beser, Director of Product Management at YouTube Youth safety features for teens, in a recent blog post titled ‘A collaborative approach to teen supervision on YouTube’.
Parents and teens will be able to link their YouTube accounts via a new Family Center hub. Here, parents will gain insight into their teens’ channel activity – such as the number of uploads, subscriptions and comments. Parents will also receive alerts when their teens upload a video or start a livestream.
These measures are part of YouTube’s broader efforts to strengthen privacy and well-being protection, helping parents safeguard their teens’ online experiences, without infringing on their privacy.
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