Every year, the amount of teen users on Instagram increases. For an app with age restrictions, the company still struggles with an influx of “under-age” users. Concerns have risen over how the Meta-owned company deals with such situations and a country has taken up Instagram on the matter.
Over the past two years, Ireland’s Data Protection Commission has been investigating how well Instagram handles teens’ data. The investigations have finally come to an end and the results are shocking! Minors (users aged 13-17) were the demography under consideration for the investigation.
The investigation highlights two ways Instagram is lax with the data of teens and minors on its platform. The platform allows users within the set age range to open business accounts, hence publicizing their contact information. Next, the social media platform makes accounts of users under 18 years of age to be public by default.
Meta in its defense says the $402 million fine is inappropriate since it made an update to its public-by-default setting last year. The social media platform intends to appeal the fine by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission. If favourable, this appeal might give the social media platform some breathing space while they try to fix their data management settings.
Over the past few years, Meta and its social media companies (Facebook and Instagram) have been getting a lot of backlash as to how they handle user data. We look forward to seeing how this will play out, as Ireland’s Data Protection Commission will release its final briefing this week. Will the social media platform be able to escape this fine, or is it inevitable?