On more than one occasion, various specialists and organizations have spoken about the dangers that may exist for minors on social networks. The truth is that they are platforms that cannot be extracted from the increasingly digital DNA of the new generations. Services like Instagram know it.
Reviewing what happens around phenomena like TikTok is a clear example that people aged 16 and under seem not to want to fall behind the revolution in terms of communication that social networks brought about.
Although TikTok’s user base is increasingly diverse, the truth is that we are talking about a platform dominated by a young audience.
Data provided by Marketing News on this social network indicate that 20 percent of the users of the social network are between 13 and 18 years old, while 32 percent are between 20 and 24 years old.
The matter seems not to be exclusive to the platform that is in vogue. Data provided by Statista indicate that as of January of this year, 3.6 percent of women and 3.2 percent of men users of social networks in Mexico were between 13 and 17 years old.
Although the percentages may seem small, in reality it is a particularly lucrative business that has resulted in the birth of certain trends such as kids influencers.
We are talking about children even in ages related to the Alpha generation (born from 2010) who star in hundreds of videos and content on the web, which reach millions of views and have served to win the sponsorship of certain brands.
With this, as they remember in Ad Age, a star of this new trend that adds 500 thousand followers without problems could earn 5,000 dollars for each content published on their profiles.
From tutorial and recommendation videos to short story blogs and, some, with a playful nature, kid influencers have become part of the consumer habits of children around the world, which for brands has been a great opportunity.
Let us remember that content for children under 13 years of age is growing at a rate of 25 percent year after year, which indicates that children are in front of the screens (away from television) in search of new content.
The truth is that amid this scenario of profits and business, criticism around the excessive use of social networks by minors has been a constant that has not only put the brands involved in this type of commercial agreements, but also to the platforms that are used for this purpose in the middle of the eye of the hurricane.
The latest criticism in this regard came from a study published by the journal Pediatrics, which reveals that the content published by the influencers kit has become a clear source for spreading the messages of junk and unhealthy food brands. .
After reviewing the content published in the profiles of the five most popular kid influences on YouTube during the past year, it was concluded that 90 percent of brand appearances were carried out by unhealthy firms.
This is perhaps the least of the evils and with a view to providing greater protection options for both users and its own service, Instagram has just announced that from now on it will require its users to confirm their date of birth.
The new requirement comes with the intention of delivering and creating new security functions for the youngest users, at a time when the Facebook-owned platform would have shown its intentions to launch a service focused on the smallest of the home, plan which was discarded after the refusal of the legislators, who indicated that the platform “has a clear history of not protecting children on its platforms.”
Instagram said in a blog post that it will use age confirmation to “ensure that we deliver the right experiences to the right age group.” Last month, the company said that users under the age of 16 will be assigned a private account when they join the platform.
In this way, from now on, when opening Instagram, the service will ask users to provide their date of birth, while showing various pop-up notifications if the user does not enter the data.
From Instagram they have said that, at some point, users must send their date of birth to continue using the service, although they did not specify the exact date.
It is important to mention that this change will affect Instagram users who have not previously shared their date of birth in the application.
Although it is true that Instagram has on the radar the possibility that some users use false dates to enter, the social network indicated that it is already working on technology to eliminate this problem, although it did not give more details.