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Australian kids who join Facebook will have their privacy settings tightened automatically as part of the social media giant’s global efforts to protect children.
Starting Tuesday, Australians under the age of 16 will be required to limit what other users may view on their profiles. Teenagers already on the app will be urged to do the same.
This includes their friends list, the individuals and pages they follow, and the posts in which they have been tagged.
The move is part of a set of changes promised by Facebook’s parent firm Meta to make Facebook and Instagram safer for adolescents.
Instagram, which is also owned by Meta, has already rolled out default privacy settings for kids.
In a blog post, Meta vice president and global safety head Antigone Davis said the company was trying out other methods to prevent teens from communicating with “suspicious” adults they did not know.
Facebook and Instagram could ban adults as suspicious if a young person has previously blocked or reported them.
Under testing, these individuals will not be suggested to teenagers as “people you may know.”
Additionally, Instagram is experimenting with eliminating the message button from children’s profiles when suspicious adults click on them.
Read also: TikTok security risks still not assessed amid ban recommendations (commsroom.co)
Meta is also collaborating with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, headquartered in the United States, to develop a global platform for teens who worry that their private photos may be disseminated online without their permission.
According to Davis, the platform will assist Meta prevent these photographs from being put online. Other tech businesses will also be able to utilize the feature.
Davis said, “The non-consensual sharing of intimate images can be extremely traumatic and we want to do all we can to discourage teens from sharing these images on our apps in the first place.”
The social media behemoth is formulating a campaign to prevent the online dissemination of exploitative content that feature minors.
More than three-quarters of those who post exploitative kid content on social media do it out of outrage, terrible humor or disgust, based on a study by Meta.
In some countries, people under the age of 18 will have to use the new privacy settings by default.
Jaw de Guzman is the content producer for Comms Room, a knowledge platform and website aimed at assisting the communications industry and its professionals.
