Meta’s has been listening to some concerns after all especially now after some pressure.
These changes very well could help parents moderate their teens. Meta’s head of product says these changes address particular 3 concerns in an Npr interview.
Will this be the end of the complaints and concerns geared towards Instagram, probably not.
I’m personally on the fence about this type of stuff. On one hand, yes I 100% agree about actually keeping kids safer online (not like the politicians “Think of the kids!” type of “safety”). On the other I don’t want anyone to have to give up privacy by having to confirm their age by sending some form of verification, whether that picture/video of ID with birth date on it or having an AI that will inevitably get so many false positives judge you, just to access a service online.
I’m in the first camp. Instagram is flooded with spam accounts posting links to illicit Telegram channels where actual CSAM is being distributed. The owner of Telegram was also arrested recently for failing to safeguard his platform from such highly illegal activity. Children having easy and often unrestricted access to social media is probably the reason why things have gotten so bad.
Every major social network should be asking for ID verification, but there should be strict safeguards on how that information is used and stored, with hefty fines for failures to safeguard.
Anything to prevent getting my i.d in a database, i would actually be ok with using an ai to verify my age by my appearance if it really came down to it and I had to choose legally some form of age verification.