Welcome to Parent Pixels, a parenting newsletter filled with practical advice, news, and resources to support you and your kids in the digital age. This week:
😬 Instagram accidentally recommends a flood of graphic Reels: Meta, Instagram’s parent company, recently apologized for an “error” after Instagram users reported seeing back-to-back disturbing content on their feeds. The issue impacted Instagram users worldwide, who saw Reels showing gore, violence, and killings. The videos were marked with the “sensitive content” label, but were still recommended back-to-back. Meta recently changed its content moderation policies to be more lax — but an error at this scale is concerning, especially if it increased the likelihood of kids encountering inappropriate material. If your child uses Instagram, it’s worth checking in:
📲 Apple will let parents share kids’ ages to limit app access: Apple recently announced several new child safety initiatives, including letting parents share their kids’ age ranges with apps, improving the App Store’s age ratings system, and making it easier for parents to set up Child Accounts. The features will roll out later this year. Notably, parents will be able to share their child’s age range (not their birthdate), allowing app developers to provide age-appropriate content. This also impacts the App Store: in addition to more age thresholds (Age 4 plus, 9 plus, 13 plus, 16 plus, and 18 plus), product pages will be updated to include details for parents, like whether an app features user-generated content, ads, or parental controls. As for Child Accounts, one of the biggest changes there is that parents can now update their child’s age after it’s created. Curious about Child Accounts and why your child might need their own Apple ID? Check out our guide for more details.
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Your child says they feel weird because they stumbled upon a really graphic video on Instagram. They didn’t mean to see it, but it just popped up on their feed. How do you handle the convo? Here are a few places to start:
😰 Is social media causing your teen’s anxiety? Here are seven steps you can take to help your teen detox from their phone, via Psychology Today.
👋 Are you following us on Instagram? Every week, we share digital parenting tips and advice you won’t want to miss.
👀 Did you know? BrightCanary comprehensively monitors text messages on Apple devices without requiring any extra software on your child’s phone. Get started for free today.