Rest Australia, raising awareness advocating for better policy to address digital threats to Australian democracy says Meta’s announcement of parental controls today does not address the root causes for the damage that Instagram is causing young people. 

“These changes allow parents to have greater control and oversight of their children’s Instagram accounts. They can review and follow lists and set time limits.”

“Making parents responsible for keeping their kids safe on Instagram won’t fix the problems the platform causes. Providing parental controls alone is an inadequate response given the scale of the problem,” it said

Rys Farthing, Director of Data Policy at Reset Australia said, “Any features that help some young people to be safer, such as parental controls, are welcome. But they’re not enough and will not address the root cause of the issues. They can unfairly make parents seem responsible for Instagram’s own problems.”

“For example, while Instagram is now enabling parents to set time limits for young people, they are also facing a number of lawsuits globally for their intentionally addictive design. Perhaps Meta should address their addictive designs, so that parents have to rely less on setting time limits. These sorts of controls can just push responsibility on to busy parents”.

“Given the money and power Instagram has to create a safer platform, compared to the busy lives of parents, this just feels a bit like gaslighting. There’s lots of things Instagram themselves should also be doing to take the burden off parents, and protect children and young people whose parents might not be able to use these tools. They need to hold themselves accountable too,” said Farthing

“These tools could be helpful for children and young people whose parents have the capacity, time and understanding to support them, but not all young people are that lucky. There will be more than a few families in Australia where children themselves are the most Instagram savvy. Pushing responsibility for safety onto parents in these situations isn’t enough,” he said