Instagram will now ask new users to submit their birthdate to verify their age in order to block people who are younger than 13 from joining the platform.
The social media giant won’t be asking current users to verify their age, which means that there could still be a number of underage users amongst the platform’s one billion members.
Instagram says it will also start offering educational tips about settings and privacy controls to younger users. It will also implement a feature where you can choose to only receive messages from people you follow.
The feature would also prevent users who you don’t follow from adding you to a group or replying to your story. The platform will also keep users’ birthdates private and will sync it with your Facebook profile.
Facebook, Snapchat and TikTok, which are all popular among young audiences, all require users to enter their birthdate during the sign-up process.
Although this is an important step for Instagram, it could consider doing more to address the current users on its platform who under 13 years of age.
Source: TechCrunch
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