Instagram says it's making the app more 'PG-13' for teens

After outrage over teens’ well-being on Instagram erupted, the company said it would adopt the film industry’s approach and give teens a PG-13 experience.

Instagram said Tuesday that it would overhaul its approach to teenagers’ accounts and try to crack down on their access to objectionable content after a firestorm of bad publicity over how teens use the social media app.

Instagram, which is owned by Meta, announced a series of changes that it said were aimed at making teens’ experience on Instagram similar to viewing PG-13 movies, with equivalent restrictions on sexualized content and other adult material.

One new restriction that Instagram said it would adopt is called age-gating: If an Instagram account regularly shares content that is age-inappropriate — for example, content related to alcohol or links to pornographic websites — then, the company said, it will block all teen accounts from being able to see or chat with that account.

The age-gating could apply even to celebrities or other widely followed adult accounts, Instagram said. But it did not say precisely where it would draw the line for adult accounts that do not want to be age-gated. A company representative said sharing one piece of age-inappropriate content would not be enough for an adult-run account to lose access to the teen audience.

Other apps, such as YouTube, also use age-gating to restrict access to certain types of content.