Instagram is taking a new step to steer minors away from harmful content and encourage them to "take out time" from the app.
New [rotection features for teenagers
Facebook Vice President of Global Affairs Nick Clegg made the statement on CNN's State of the Union show less than a week after whistleblower Frances Haugen testified before Congress about internal studies indicating that Instagram can harm young people's mental health.
We're going to introduce something which I think will make a considerable difference, which is where our systems see that a teenager is looking at the same content over and over again, and it’s content that may not be conducive to their well being, we will nudge them to look at other content, said by Nick Clegg
Apart from suspending plans for the Instagram Kids site and providing parents optional tools to monitor kids, he also stated that the firm planned to offer a feature dubbed "taking a break," which will push teens to just take a break from using Instagram.
Although Clegg didn't provide a timeline for either of the features.
The Verge emailed the company looking for further information, to which a Facebook spokesperson replied that the said features are "not testing yet but will". The representative cited Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri's
blog post from September 27th, which stated that the firm was "exploring" the features.
Instagram says they wanted to protect the well-being of the teenagers that's why they are adding extra safety features for the young ones, and that they are collaborating with parents, experts, policymakers, and regulators by listening to their feedback.
Following reports from the Wall Street Journal based on internal papers provided by Haugen, Facebook has been under fire for several weeks. Haugen, a former Facebook product manager, testified before Congress on Tuesday about the company's internal study that found
Instagram to be toxic, particularly for underage girls. Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook,
refuted Haugen's claim, saying it was nonsensical for a firm that relies on ads to promote content that makes people upset in order to generate money.
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