Instagram will soon notify parents of teens who search for suicide or self-harm content on its platform, company officials announced Thursday.
Repeated searches for terms linked to suicide or self-harm over a short duration will trigger the parental alert. The feature is only available through Instagram’s parental supervision tool. That is separate from, but can be combined with, a Teen Account, which is designated for youth between the ages of 13 and 17.
Though Instagram attempts to block such search results and direct teens to helplines, it has never notified parents about their children’s activity. Parents will receive the alert via an app notification and a separate email, text, or WhatsApp message, depending on the contact information they provided.
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