Instagram is announcing two updates as part of our ongoing work to keep young people safe:
Starting today, we will require new users to let us know their age before they can sign up for Instagram.
Those under 13 will not be allowed to join, per our longstanding policy that you must be 13 to have an Instagram account.
If you’ve connected your Facebook account to your Instagram account, we will add the date of birth that’s on your Facebook profile.
Editing your date of birth on Facebook will also change it on Instagram. If you don’t have a Facebook account or if you have not connected your accounts, you can add or edit your birthday directly on Instagram.
Historically, we didn’t require people to tell us their age because we wanted Instagram to be a place where everyone can express themselves fully – irrespective of their identity. In the spirit of that decision, we won’t show people’s birthday information to others in the community.
In the coming weeks, we’ll be rolling out a new setting in direct messages that will allow people to choose to no longer receive messages or be added to chat groups by people they don’t follow.
Understanding how old people are on Instagram is a central part of the work we’re doing to keep young people safe. It will allow us to create age-appropriate experiences for our youngest community members, while living up to our longstanding rule to ensure people who are underage do not have access to Instagram.
The safety of young people has always been central to our decision-making, but we are increasingly doing more. Over the coming months, we’ll be exploring additional changes using birthday information; for example by recommending young people enable more private settings.