Instagram and Facebook Announce Key New Features to Combat Child Abuse

Meta has responded with concrete action to recent allegations of child abuse on its networks, especially Instagram and Facebook. The company led by Mark Zuckerberg has announced stricter restrictions on sending messages to minors. The company is also rolling out new features that give parents more control over their children’s profile settings.

This Thursday, Meta explained that by default, persons under 16 years of age (or up to 18 in some countries) are already They won’t receive messages from users they don’t follow or connect with on Instagram and Messenger.. They also cannot be added to group chats by strangers.

The change will also be implemented in Messenger. Children and teens will only receive messages from Facebook friends or people they are connected to through phone contacts. The new measure “will help teens and their parents feel even more confident that they won’t hear from people they don’t know,” Mehta said in a statement.

The European Commission has drawn Meta’s attention on several occasions toregistering effective measures to prevent child abuse on their platforms. Last December, the agency issued a request for information regarding the distribution of child pornography on Instagram. He also referred to a complaint about how Instagram and Facebook algorithms facilitate the creation of pedophile networks.

Meta’s other measures against child abuse on Instagram and Facebook

Meta’s management is under scrutiny following an investigation by Wall Street Journal, conducted in collaboration with Stanford University, warned last year that Instagram even allows the use of hashtags that clearly hint at pedophilia. These “tags” are associated with accounts promoting the sale of child sexual materials.

Another US media report said the same thing was happening on Facebook. They discovered the existence community groups that openly discussed sex with minors. The study also showed how the algorithm recommends similar groups to users with between 200,000 and 800,000 followers.

As a result, Meta said in December it would expand its list of phrases and emojis related to child abuse to limit this content. The technology company also said it is using machine learning tools to discover connections between different search queries.

Meta reported that along with new restrictions on sending messages to children, parents will now have to give consent when a minor wants to change their personal account to a public account On Instagram. The same thing will happen when your children want to change the category for managing sensitive content or settings for private messages.

This will be possible on profiles that have Parental Controls enabled, a tool released by Meta in March 2022. Instead of receiving a simple notification, parents will have the opportunity to approve or reject these changes.

Social media managers will be held accountable

The new features “empower parents” and “give them the tools they need to protect them,” said Larry Magid, CEO of ConnectSafely, a nonprofit organization dedicated to internet safety. Magid stressed that these measures at the same time protect “the privacy of their teenage children and their ability to communicate with friends and family.”

Meta’s new features come at an opportune time. Next week, Mark Zuckerberg will have to testify in the US Senate discuss the problem of child exploitation on the Internet. The directors of X (formerly Twitter), TikTok, Snap and Discord were also invited to the meeting, scheduled for January 31.

Meta is also facing lawsuits from dozens of US states for allegedly fueling a mental health crisis among young people. Prosecutors pushing the lawsuit argue that Zuckerberg’s company repeatedly misled the public about the substantial dangers of its platforms. And even knowing the risks, He also encouraged compulsive use of his drugs in children and adolescents.