Instagram Tightens Teens Safety With PG-13 Guidelines and New Parental Controls

Instagram has announced new PG-13 guidelines for teens, marking a major step toward creating a safer and more age-appropriate experience on the platform. Starting today, all teen accounts will be guided by PG-13 movie ratings by default. This means that teens will see content similar to what they might find in a PG-13 movie — generally safe, but with limited exposure to mature themes.

Teens under 18 will automatically be placed into a new 13+ content setting, and they won’t be able to turn it off without a parent’s permission. Instagram has also launched a new, stricter setting called Limited Content for parents who want even more control over what their teens can view.

According to Instagram, thousands of parents from around the world helped shape these updates by sharing their feedback. This is the biggest update to Teen Accounts since they were first introduced last year.

Instagram Tightens Teens Safety With PG-13 Guidelines and New Parental Controls

Instagram says the PG-13 system will help reduce exposure to inappropriate or harmful content. The updated policies will block or limit posts that include strong language, risky stunts, or content promoting harmful behaviours such as drug use or alcohol consumption.

The app will continue to hide or stop recommending sexually suggestive content, graphic images, and adult material to teens. Instagram’s team says these changes aim to make the teen experience more like watching a PG-13 film — where mild mature themes may appear, but explicit or harmful content will not be available.

To make sure teens don’t bypass these protections, Instagram will use age prediction technology to detect if someone is lying about their age and automatically apply the right content settings.

New “Limited Content” Setting for Parents

Recognising that all families are different, Instagram introduced a Limited Content option. This setting filters out even more content and removes features like commenting. It’s for parents who prefer a stricter experience for their teens.

Starting next year, the Limited Content mode will also restrict the AI chat experiences available to teens. A survey by Ipsos found that 96% of US parents welcomed this added level of control.

Stricter Protections Across Instagram

Instagram has also strengthened its systems to ensure teens are better protected across the platform:

• Accounts: Teens won’t be able to follow accounts that share adult or inappropriate content. Instagram will also block these accounts from contacting or following teens.
• Search: Instagram will block search results for mature topics like alcohol, gore, or other sensitive terms.
• Content Feeds: Posts that violate the teen guidelines won’t appear in Explore, Reels, Stories, or Feed, even if they come from someone the teen already follows.
• AI Responses: Instagram’s AI will now also follow PG-13 standards to avoid giving age-inappropriate answers.

Listening to Parents

Instagram said it has collected more than 3 million content ratings from parents worldwide to refine its age-appropriate guidelines. In recent tests, most parents considered fewer than 2% of the posts shown to teens inappropriate.

To continue improving, the company will run regular surveys for parents and let them report posts they think teens shouldn’t see.

See Also: Instagram Hits 3 Billion Users, Challenges TikTok and YouTube With New Reels UI

Global Rollout

The new teen safety features are first launching in the US, UK, Australia, and Canada, and will be available globally by the end of the year. Instagram also plans to expand these protections to teens on Facebook and to those who falsely claim to be adults.

With these updates, Instagram hopes to reassure parents that it’s taking stronger steps to keep teens safe while offering a more transparent and family-friendly experience online.