Parents in Hong Kong who are concerned about their children’s social media use will soon be able to monitor their Instagram accounts more closely. Meta is launching special Instagram accounts for users aged under 16 in Hong Kong and the Asia-Pacific region this week. The feature, which was announced in late 2024, aims to limit who can contact teens on the app and what content they can see, as well as track time under-16 users spend on the social media platform.
Features on Instagram’s Teen Accounts
When the new feature goes live this week, Instagram will place all users aged 13-17 into Teen Accounts and they’ll need a parent’s permission to change the default settings on the account. Some of the protections include:
- Private accounts: All Teen Accounts will automatically be set to private and followers must send a request to be able to see an under-16 user’s content and interact with them on the app. This also applies to teens under 18 when they sign up as a new Instagram user.
- Messaging restrictions: Teenage users can only get DMs from people they follow or are already connected to.
- Sensitive content restrictions: This will restrict what teenaged users can see in the Explore and Reels features so that they have limited exposure to content showing violence and promotions for cosmetic procedures.
- Limited interactions: Instagram users in the 13-17 age group can only be tagged or mentioned by people they follow. The app will also activate the most restrictive version of its anti-bullying feature called Hidden Words to filter out offensive words and phrases from comments and DM requests.
- Time limit and sleep mode: These features include reminders to exit the app after 60 minutes each day and muting notifications from 10pm-7am.
Additional Supervision Options
Instagram is updating its supervision feature to give parents the option of changing the default settings on Teen Account settings so they can more closely track how their kids use the app. They can see who their teen has messaged in the past week — but will not able able to see the messages — put daily time limits on how much time they spent on the platform, and even block them from using it during specific times. Teens can also choose the topics they want to see in Explore, which parents can also access.
Some of these new features will also impact how teenage creators can use their Instagram accounts. For instance, since Teen Accounts will automatically be set to private, content from them will not pop up in Explore, Feed, or Reel recommendations. Professional account users may also lose access to tools like Insights and Meta Pay accounts. Some of these changes can be reversed with a parent or guardian’s permission.
Instagram’s Teen Accounts was introduced in the US, UK, Canada, Australia and the European Union late last year and began rolling out in other countries in January 2025. Meta has said they will also bring the feature to their other platforms — which includes Facebook, Threads, and WhatsApp — this year.
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