In December, just ahead of Instagram head Adam Mosseri’s testimony before the U.S. Senate over the impacts of its app on teen users, the company announced plans to roll out a series of safety features and parental controls. This morning, Instagram is updating a critical set of these features which will now default teen users under the age of 16 to the app’s most restrictive content setting. It will also prompt existing teens to do the same, and will introduce a new “Settings check-up” feature that guides teens to update their safety and privacy settings.
The changes are rolling out to global users across platforms amid increased regulatory pressure over social media apps and their accompanying minor safety issues.
In last year’s Senate hearing, Mosseri defended Instagram’s teen safety track record in light of concerns emerging from Facebook whistleblowe …