Instagram is making its platform safer for younger users

Instagram is one of the biggest social media platforms in the world. Unfortunately, it's also got a stalker problem. The company has tried to combat this in various ways, even going so far as to remove the "Following" tabs from its user interface.

Now it wants the service to be even safer for teens. It is introducing some new features aimed to clamp down on adults who send multiple DMs and requests to people under the age of 18. Starting now, adults will not be able to message teens who do not follow them.

Its also leaning heavily on artificial intelligence and machine learning to track down adults who abuse the messaging system. Teens who are in contact with adults who have shown suspicious behaviour in the past will be shown a safety prompt. They will also be reminded not to feel pressured to respond and will be given tools to block and report adults.

The company is also aware that not every teen tells them the correct age during sign-up.

"We know that young people can lie about their date of birth," says Instagram in a blog post. "We want to do more to stop this from happening, but verifying people's age online is complex and something many in our industry are grappling with."

One of the ways its doing this is by using AI to predict the real age of the users and apply age-appropriate features to their accounts. Adults who show repeated "suspicious behaviour" will be barred from seeing teen profiles or stories in their feeds. Instagram will also restrict what it shows them on "Suggested Users" and prevent them from discovering teen accounts.