UNDER PRESSURE

Instagram to Overhaul Platform After Child Safety Concerns

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was urged by lawmakers at a January Congressional hearing to apologize to families affected by what critics describe as the platform’s lax controls.

Instagram is about to stage a massive overhaul of its platform as part of an ongoing effort to better protect children and teenagers from harmful online content. The measures, which The New York Times describes as the most far-reaching by any app to date, will bring in new tools for parents to supervised their children’s app usage, as well as any accounts belonging to users under the age of 18 set to ‘private’ by default. Notifications between the hours of 10p.m. and 7a.m. will also be paused for minors so as to better promote sleep. “We decided to focus on what parents think because they knew better what’s appropriate for their children than any tech company, any private company, any senator or policymaker or staffer or regulator,” Instagram head Adam Mosseri said. It comes after a January Congressional hearing urged Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of the app’s parent company Meta, to apologize to families affected by Instagram’s lax controls, through which it’s been repeatedly accused of facilitating pedophiles, bullying and sexual extortion as well as the promotion of eating disorders and self-harm. “I’m sorry for everything you have all been through,” Zuckerberg said at the time.

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