Adults Will No Longer Be Able To Message Kids Under 18 On Instagram

So, minors who follow their parents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents on the platform will still be able to direct message back and forth, but strangers unknown to the minors will not. Adults who try to message minors who don't follow them will receive a notification that messaging them isn't an option, Instagram said in a blog post.

"There are cases where it is appropriate for adults and teens to interact on Instagram but it’s important that teens be protected against unwanted contact from adults. Requiring that the teen – not the adult – establish the connection empowers teens to protect themselves," Larry Magrid, CEO of ConnectSafely.org wrote in the post.

For example, Instagram's behind-the-scenes tools will track "suspicious behavior," such as adults sending a large amount of friend or message requests to minors and alerting teens who are interacting with them.

They'll be given a "safety prompt" that will provide options to end the conversation, report, block, or restrict the adult. Such prompts may also remind younger users to "be careful sharing photos, videos, or information with someone you don't know."

Instagram was not thorough in its post about how it would accomplish that, but suggested it may include preventing users exhibiting suspicious behaviors from even seeing teen content in Reels and Explore, or hiding their comments on public posts from teens.

The platform also encouraged minor users to create a private account rather than a public account, with more information on what that means when they set the account up.

And they're hoping that machine learning can help catch those who aren't being truthful when they create accounts.

"While many people are honest about their age, we know that young people can lie about their date of birth," the post reads. "We want to do more to stop this from happening, but verifying people's age online is complex and something many in our industry are grappling with. To address this challenge, we’re developing new artificial intelligence and machine learning technology to help us keep teens safer and apply new age-appropriate features."

And the platform emphasized that they're just a starting point for keeping their younger users safe.

"We believe that everyone should have a safe and supportive experience on Instagram," the blog post reads. "These updates are a part of our ongoing efforts to protect young people, and our specialist teams will continue to invest in new interventions that further limit inappropriate interactions between adults and teens."

Read Instagram's full update right here.