Meta Horizon icon

Creating safe, age-appropriate experiences on Instagram

Our tools and resources are here to help parents and teens feel safe and informed. Explore our guides, tips and insights to experience Instagram with confidence and peace of mind.

Group of four friends close together, looking down toward the camera and smiling gently under a bright blue sky.

Introducing
Instagram Teen Accounts

A new, protected experience for teens, guided by parents

Soon, teens on Instagram will automatically be placed in Teen Accounts, which have built-in limits on who can contact them and the content they see, and more ways to connect and explore their interests. Teens under 16 will need parental permission to change these settings.

FEATURES AND TOOLS

Get in the know about instagram features

Learn more about features and tools dedicated to helping teens create,
explore and connect on Instagram in safe, age-approriate ways.

Appropriate content

We take proactive measures to enhance everyone’s safety. Our team works to review and remove content that violates our Community Guidelines. We’ve also created tools like:

Default sensitive content screens that limit visibility for potentially upsetting or triggering posts
The ability to set hidden words which flags comments and message requests that are considered inappropriate or offensive.

With supervision enabled, parents and guardians can:

Get notified if their teen reports specific content and chooses to share that information with you

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Smiling person holding a phone horizontally, focused on the screen, with blue and purple lighting in the background.

Guide to how we support age appropriate experiences

Instagram sensitive content control settings with options to filter content from accounts you don’t follow.

Limiting your child’s exposure to potentially sensitive content

Contact and interactions

We take bullying and harassment seriously. Comment warnings are displayed to remind people of our Community Guidelines when there’s an attempt to post potentially negative or offensive comments, informing them that their comment may be removed or hidden if they proceed.

Our restrict tool prevents comments from being visible by anyone other than the restricted person
With blocking, teens can block an account and any future accounts the blocked person may create
Limits allow your teen to automatically hide comments and message requests from new followers or people who don’t follow them
Controls allow them to restrict tags or mentions to only people they follow or no one at all in a comment, caption or story

With supervision enabled, parents and guardians can:

Receive notifications on who your teen is following and who’s following them
See who their teen has blocked
Get notified if your teen reports something and chooses to share that report with you

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Person leaning out of a car window at sunset, looking into the distance.

Tips for handling online bullying

Three children with colorful backpacks walking down a city sidewalk.

Parent’s Guide to Cyberbullying

Time management

Teens are encouraged to create boundaries around how much time they spend on Instagram. You and your teen have access to features like:

Sleep mode to silence all notifications at night and change their activity status
Daily limits and reminders, where teens are notified to leave the app after 60 minutes each day, and teens under 16 will need their parent’s permission to change this notification

With supervision enabled, parents and guardians can:

See insights around their teen’s use
Set limits on daily use
Give them agency to make extension requests to spend more time on Instagram

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Two people lying on grass, smiling and relaxing while one holds a phone and the other wears headphones.

How to Form Healthy Habits Online with Your Teenager

Three teens sitting outdoors in sunlight, smiling and looking at a phone together.

Digital wellness tips for parents

Online safety and privacy

The safety and privacy of the people who use Instagram is a top priority for us. When teens join Instagram, their account will be set to protected and age-appropriate settings. Our automatic defaults for teens include:

Private accounts for teens under 18. Teens under 16 will need their parents permission to change this setting
Message controls that allow teens to limit who can send them DMs and add them to group chats, giving them the choice to only receive messages from people who follow them
DM restrictions mean only people they follow or people they’re already connected to can message them or add them to group chats

With supervision enabled, parents and guardians can:

See account privacy settings, such as their account privacy, who your teen is able to message with, and who can add them to group chats

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Smiling teen and adult sitting on the floor, looking at a phone together in a cozy room with plants.

Importance of online privacy

Parent and their teen sit on the couch, with the parent's arm around the teen. Both are laughing and enjoying something on a smartphone.

Privacy setting conversation starters

Well-being

It is important that we help teens feel positive about the time they spend on Instagram. We support them with tools like:

Alternative topic nudges where we send notifications, prompting them to shift their focus to other topics to encourage awareness
Mute to allow them to silence accounts they don’t wish to receive posts and stories from
Hide like counts on their posts and the posts they see while scrolling
If someone is searching for content that may be related to eating disorders or self-injury, we’ll share helpful expert-backed resources

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Teenager with blue hair smiling and standing with arms crossed in a brightly lit indoor space.

Cultivating resilience

Two people walking outdoors with arms around each other, smiling.

Social Media & Suicide Prevention

Optional tools for oversight and guidance

Illustration showing how a parent or guardian can invite a teen to start supervision using the Meta Family Center.

Supervision Tools

Supervision adds tools and insights to the automatic protections in Teen Accounts, giving parents of teens 13–17 more oversight and a way to collaborate on safety settings.

MORE RESOURCES

Safety on Instagram

Instagram for Parents

Instagram Help Center

Meta Safety Center

FEATURED NEWS AND RESOURCES

Dr. Hina Talib and Meta's Nicole Lopez seated on stage in front of a "Screen Smart" sign, smiling during a panel discussion.

RESOURCES

Youth experts Dr. Hina Talib and Meta’s Nicole Lopez fireside discussion

Meta's director of youth safety policy Nicole Lopez talks with adolescent medicine specialist and pediatrician Dr. Hina Talib