Current:Home > ScamsMeta rolls out more parental controls for Instagram and virtual reality-InfoLens
Meta rolls out more parental controls for Instagram and virtual reality
View Date:2024-12-23 18:48:44
Facebook parent company Meta is rolling out additional parental supervision measures for Instagram and its virtual reality headset, expanding on a suite of tools released in the U.S. in recent months.
The changes come on the heels of a year of intense public scrutiny for the company, with significant criticism focused on child safety and Instagram's detrimental effects on younger users, particularly teenage girls.
Last fall, a Wall Street Journal investigation reported that the company's studies had repeatedly confirmed the harmful effects of the photo sharing app on teenage girls' mental health, even as Meta proceeded with a controversial plan to develop a version of the social media platform for kids under 13. (That project has since been put on hold.)
The ensuing months brought additional revelations from whistleblower Frances Haugen, a congressional inquiry about child safety and an investigation by several states' attorneys general into how Instagram recruits and affects children.
The company announced in December that it would be releasing new safety tools aimed at teens and their parents, which they started rolling out in March.
Instagram says users must be at least 13 years old in order to create an account — a rule that's easy to skirt because the app has no age verification process.
Antigone Davis, Meta's head of safety, told Morning Edition that the company is working on specific safeguards — like developing artificial intelligence to better identify underage users — but it remains a challenge.
"There really is no panacea for solving that problem," she said. "That's a problem that the industry faces, and we're trying to come up with multiple ways to address that issue."
In the meantime, Meta is taking steps to give parents and guardians more oversight of their kids' activities in virtual reality and on Instagram — implementing some of the changes that it had first teased back in March.
Meta announced on Tuesday that it is rolling out parental supervision tools to all of its Oculus Quest virtual reality headsets, and expanding certain parental controls on Instagram in the U.S. before launching others in more than half a dozen countries.
The new features will allow parents to approve or deny requests to purchase certain apps for the Quest, to block apps that may be inappropriate for younger users and to view their child's apps, headset screen time and list of Oculus Friends. Parents also can prevent their teen from accessing content from their PC on their Quest headset by blocking Link and AirLink.
The teen must initiate the process, and both parties have to agree in order for parents to link to their teens' Quest account, Meta added.
On Instagram, parents and guardians can now invite their teens to initiate supervision tools (a process that previously only worked the other way around), can set limits on their teen's use of Instagram during specific times of the day or days of the week and can see more information when their teen reports a post or account.
Instagram also will launch new "nudges" for teen users in certain countries, encouraging them to switch to a different topic if they're repeatedly looking at the same type of content on their Explore page.
"We designed this new feature because research suggests that nudges can be effective for helping people — especially teens — be more mindful of how they're using social media in the moment," Meta explained. The company cited internal research showing from a one-week testing period, which showed that one in five teens who saw the new nudges switched to a different topic.
The company says it soon will launch reminders for teens to turn on its existing Take a Break feature when they've been scrolling through Reels for a certain length of time.
As part of this new suite of updates, Meta is also working to provide parents and guardians with more information and resources. It says it's adding new articles — including tips for talking to teens about various online topics — to its Family Center education hub, and launching a parent education hub for virtual reality.
"This is just a starting point, informed by careful collaboration with industry experts, and we'll continue to grow and evolve our parental supervision tools over time," it adds.
The company's announcement came after it recently was hit with eight lawsuits across the country, all of which accused it of deliberately making Instagram and Facebook addictive to young people to boost Meta's profits, as Bloomberg reported.
A Meta spokesperson declined to comment to Bloomberg on the litigation, but noted the time limits and other parental controls it has developed for Instagram.
Editor's note: Meta pays NPR to license NPR content.
veryGood! (43745)
Related
- Man charged with murder in fatal shooting of 2 workers at Chicago’s Navy Pier
- Australians cast final votes in a referendum on whether to create an Indigenous Voice
- Amid a mental health crisis, toy industry takes on a new role: building resilience
- Philadelphia officer leaves hospital after airport shooting that killed 2nd officer; no arrests yet
- Glen Powell responds to rumor that he could replace Tom Cruise in 'Mission: Impossible'
- See The Voice Contestant Who Brought Reba McEntire to Tears
- California Gov. Newsom signs law to slowly raise health care workers’ minimum wage to $25 per hour
- By land, sea, air and online: How Hamas used the internet to terrorize Israel
- Chipotle unveils cilantro-scented soap, 'water' cup candles in humorous holiday gift line
- Palestinians flee northern Gaza after Israel orders mass evacuation with ground attack looming
Ranking
- Chrysler recalls over 200k Jeep, Dodge vehicles over antilock-brake system: See affected models
- Lack of water worsens misery in besieged Gaza as Israeli airstrikes continue
- 'Moonlighting,' a weird, wonderful '80s detective romcom, is now streaming on Hulu
- Michelle Williams to Narrate Britney Spears' Upcoming Memoir The Woman in Me
- Candidates line up for special elections to replace Virginia senators recently elected to US House
- 'Wait Wait' for October 14, 2023: 25th Anniversary Spectacular, Part VII!
- Ex-Connecticut police officer suspected of burglaries in 3 states
- City councilwoman arrested for bringing gun to pro-Palestinian rally: NYPD
Recommendation
-
Drone footage captures scope of damage, destruction from deadly Louisville explosion
-
Schools near a Maui wildfire burn zone are reopening. Parents wrestle with whether to send kids back
-
'A cosmic masterpiece:' Why spectacular sights of eclipses never fail to dazzle the public
-
In New Zealand, Increasingly Severe Crackdowns on Environmental Protesters Fail to Deter Climate Activists
-
Tennis Channel suspends reporter after comments on Barbora Krejcikova's appearance
-
Golden Bachelor's Joan Vassos Shares Family Update After Shocking Exit
-
Best Buy will sell DVDs through the holiday season, then discontinue sales
-
Little Rock’s longest-serving city manager, Bruce Moore, dies at 57