Editor’s take: Facebook is taking additional steps to help it “create safer, more private experiences for young people” on Instagram. Namely, you’ll be required to share your birthday. Failing to do so will result in losing access to Instagram. And don’t plan on lying, cause Instagram will know.
Pavni Diwanji, VP of youth products at Facebook, said in a recent blog post that they’ve started asking people to share their birthday with Instagram if they haven’t done so previously. Instagram actually started down this path in late 2019 when it first started asking users to share their birthday with the company, but it wasn’t mandatory.
That’ll soon be changing.
Diwanji said users that haven’t yet shared their birthday will start to see notifications for the information when opening Instagram. “…if you haven’t provided us with your birthday by a certain point, you’ll need to share it to continue using Instagram,” Diwanji added, but didn’t mention a specific deadline.
Furthermore, Instagram will start showing warning screens placed on age-sensitive posts. These warnings aren’t new, as they’ve accompanied sensitive or graphic posts for a while, but now you’ll have to supply your birthday in order to see them if you haven’t already shared it.
Diwanji said birthday information is necessary to power new features designed to protect young users. It’ll also be used to help Instagram show users more relevant ads.
For those who are simply planning to supply a false birthday, Instagram may be one step ahead of you. Diwanji said they’re now using artificial intelligence to “estimate” how old uses are based on things like “Happy Birthday” posts.
“In the future, if someone tells us they’re above a certain age, and our technology tells us otherwise, we’ll show them a menu of options to verify their age,” Diwanji added.