Damage Control: Facebook Reveals Instagram Parental Controls Ahead of Senate Hearing

Facebook-owned Instagram is introducing a set of parental control features in March of 2022 that it claims will give parents and guardians more oversight over their teens’ social media usage. The announcement comes just days before Instagram head Adam Mosseri will appear before the Senate.

Forbes reports that days ahead of Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri’s testimony before Congress, the company has announced plans to introduce a set of parental control features that will give parents and guardians more oversight and control over their teens’ social media usage. The new parental controls are set to be introduced across the platform in March of 2022.

Instagram head Adam Mosseri (Steve Jennings/Getty)

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg arrives for the 8th annual Breakthrough Prize awards ceremony at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California on November 3, 2019. (Photo by JOSH EDELSON / AFP) (Photo by JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty Images)

Mosseri said in a blog post that the new features are designed to make Instagram safer for younger users and the platform plans to take a more restrictive approach on what sort of content it recommends to teenage users.

Mosseri stated in the blog post:

Every day I see the positive impact that Instagram has for young people everywhere. I’m proud that our platform is a place where teens can spend time with the people they care about, explore their interests, and explore who they are.

I want to make sure that it stays that way, which means above all keeping them safe on Instagram. We’ll continue doing research, consulting with experts, and testing new concepts to better serve teens.

Today, I’d like to clarify some of the work that we’ve been doing for a long time, and also lay out a few new things that we’ve been developing to meaningfully improve the experience on Instagram for teens, parents and guardians. This includes developing new tools for parents and guardians and launching Take A Break.

The new features will allow parents and guardians to keep track of how much time their teens spend on the app, set time limits, and notify them if the teen reports someone on the platform.