GRAND RAPIDS, Mich — This week, the Meta-owned social media company Instagram announced that Teen Accounts will be guided by PG-13 movie ratings by default.
This means that users under the age of 18 will automatically be placed in this updated setting, viewing content on Instagram similar to what would be seen in a PG-13 rated movie. This setting will not be changed without a parent's permission.
EXPANDING PROTECTIONS ACROSS TEEN ACCOUNTS ACCORDING TO INSTAGRAM:
- Accounts: Teens will no longer be able to follow accounts that we’ve found regularly share age-inappropriate content, or if their name or bio suggests the account is inappropriate for teens. If teens already follow these accounts, they’ll no longer be able to see or interact with their content, send them DMs, or see their comments under anyone’s posts. We won’t recommend these accounts to teens, and we’ll make it harder for teens to find these accounts in Search. These protections work both ways: these accounts won’t be able to follow teens, send them DMs, or comment on their posts.
- Search: We already block search terms related to certain sensitive topics, like suicide, self-harm, and eating disorders. Now we’ll block teens’ ability to see content results for a wider range of mature search terms, such as ‘alcohol’ or ‘gore’— and we’re working to make sure these terms will still be blocked if they’re misspelled.
- Content Experience: Teens shouldn’t see content that goes against our updated guidelines in recommendations (Explore, Reels, and in-Feed), Feed, and Stories — even when shared by someone they follow — or comments. If someone sends a teen a link to such content in DMs, they won’t be able to open it.
- AI: We’ve also updated our AI experiences for teens to be guided by PG-13 ratings by default, meaning AIs should not give age-inappropriate responses that would feel out of place in a PG-13 movie.
This move is not being applauded by everyone, though, with parental groups like West Michigan-based Protect Young Eyes saying this is too little too late.
"Let's not phrase them for what should have been done 15 years ago, too much Instagram has existed since 2010, why in the world did it take until October of 2025 for them to decide to align themselves with content that's appropriate for a certain age group?," Protect Young Eyes founder Chris McKenna told me. "And what's more is we have recent evidence that was based on testing in September done by Arturo Bejar, the META whistleblower and other organizations, where they tested all 53 of the team safety features that were supposedly rolled out back in December of 2024 when they rolled out teen accounts, and they found that 46 of them either didn't exist anymore or were faulty."
Chris recommends not allowing your child to use social media of any kind until they are 16, and no smartphones until high school. But, if you feel it is important to get your kid online before then, there are some safety steps you can take, which you can watch below.
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