In a bid to protect youngsters on its platform and provide age-appropriate and safer experiences, Instagram has announced that it will now ask the date of birth from those who are creating an account on the platform. The users’ birthdays will not be visible to others, but they will be able to see it when they view their own private account information. Further, if a new user connects his/her account with Facebook, the short video- and photo-sharing service will automatically add that date from the user’s Facebook profile.
‘Starting today, we will be asking for your date of birth when creating an account on Instagram. Asking for this information will help prevent underage people from joining Instagram, help us keep young people safer and enable more age-appropriate experiences overall. Editing your date of birth on Facebook will also change it on Instagram. If you don’t have a Facebook account or if you have not connected your accounts, you can add or edit your birthday directly on Instagram,’ the platform said in a blog post.
Once you create a new Instagram account, you can find your birthday from your profile. To find your birthday on your Instagram profile, go to your profile and tap Edit Profile, and then tap Personal Information to view your birthday. (see below.) Currently, it seems that the update that shows birthday hasn't been rolled out in India yet.
According to Instagram’s Terms of Use, a user must be at least 13 years old to have an account (in most countries). The Facebook Inc-owned platform has also urged people to report an account if they find that it belongs to someone under the permissible age so that the company can ensure that underage people aren’t using Instagram. All the accounts – whether it’s personal or created for something else like accounts dedicated to a pet, hobby, or brand – come under this umbrella.
‘In the coming months, we will use the birthday information you share with us to create more tailored experiences, such as education around account controls and recommended privacy settings for young people. This information also helps us provide age-appropriate and safer experiences for the youngest members of the Instagram community. For example, we won’t display alcohol-related ads to people who are under the legal age limit in their country,’ Instagram said.
The platform is also strengthening its messaging privacy for everyone. Users will now have the ability to allow only people they follow to send them messages and add to group threads. Those who enable this setting will no longer receive messages, group message requests or story replies from anyone they have not chosen to follow. A similar feature has been seen on WhatsApp, which is also owned by Facebook Inc.
