Instagram for teenagers available in Hong Kong this week

Meta has announced that it is expanding its Instagram "Teen Accounts" to Hong Kong to ensure the online safety of young users, with the new feature available this week.

The social media giant, which owns Facebook and Instagram, said that teen accounts are designed to create a more secure and age-appropriate space for teenagers online. These accounts come with built-in protections such as limitations to unwanted interactions, enhanced privacy settings, parental control, and more.
 
In addition to teen accounts, Meta is bringing an age verification feature to Instagram. Meta said that to ensure that young users do not misrepresent their age, additional verification steps will be required in certain situations - such as when someone attempts to create an account with an adult birthdate.

Meta said a number of built-in protections with the teen accounts are enabled by default for users under the age of 16, and any adjustments to these restrictive settings will require parental approval.

By default, teen accounts are set to private, meaning they must approve new followers, and non-followers cannot view or interact with their content.

The new features also include a sleep mode, which will be enabled from 10pm to 7am, muting notifications and automatically sending replies to messages overnight.

Meanwhile, teen accounts offer additional tools for supervision by parents, allowing parents to monitor conversations, and set daily time limits.