Social media giant Meta is enlisting parent influencers as part of an awareness drive to help families keep their children safe online and limit screen time.
Meta teamed up with organisers of Creators HQ in Dubai on Monday to launch a project to shield children and teenagers from harmful content on Instagram, amid concern over the impact of social media on the wellbeing of young people.
Creators HQ is part of one of the UAE’s largest content management and development platforms.
At a workshop in Dubai as part of a regional introduction, experts from Meta broke down to more than 50 content creators how to explain the tools available to parents to keep the digital space safe for children.
“Our objective is to raise awareness and showcase the features, parental controls we have on Instagram,” said Moon Baz, Meta director of global partnerships for Africa, Middle East and Turkey, told The National. “This is part of a series of events we will have to help parents understand the safety tools, so they are comfortable for their teenagers to be on the platform.”
Declining mental health around the globe has been linked to the rapid rise of social media, leading governments to move to introduce tough restrictions on their use among under 16s.
The initiative comes amid growing calls for technology companies to do more to protect children from addictive online usage.
A California jury in March found Meta and YouTube liable for using features that made the platforms addictive to teenagers. The jury ordered Meta to pay the complainant, a young woman who alleged the platforms had harmed her mental health, about $2 million in damages and YouTube to pay $900,00. Meta has said it will appeal.
Ms Baz said the goal is to continue to raise awareness about the safeguards available.
“Our objective is to protect teenagers that are using our platforms,” she said. “It's part of Meta's global commitment for youth safety and we're doing it in line with the Year of the Family. We know this is top of mind for a lot of parents.”
The UAE government earlier this year issued legislation to protect children from harmful digital content and specified the role of digital platforms and internet service providers.
Top tips for teenagers
Meta officially launched “teen accounts” with supervision controls in 2024 so parents could monitor followers and content accessed by children. These accounts were revamped with stricter settings and introduced across the Middle East and North Africa region in April for users aged 13 to 18.
“Anyone between 13 and 18 is automatically placed in the teen account that has a default protection mode, which will give peace of mind to parents without it being too intrusive,” Ms Baz said.
“They will know who their teenagers are following and limit the time on Instagram. Teenagers can still have a good experience but we want to encourage healthy digital habits across our platforms, protect teenagers while giving comfort to parents.”
Under-18s will automatically be placed in the 13-plus account. The default Instagram setting is private when users between 13 to 18 years register and content will be age appropriate.
Parents who prefer extra controls can choose a “limited content” setting to further control what teenagers see on Instagram. The parent can opt in or out of the settings, the teenager cannot opt out without a parent’s permission. This is part of a series of launches of limited content teen accounts in the UK, US, Australia and Canada in October 2025.
Sexually suggestive content, violent and graphic visuals, and adult content including alcohol and tobacco will not show up.
Teenagers can no longer follow accounts that Instagram has found regularly share age-inappropriate content, or if their name or bio suggests the account is not suitable for teenagers. If teenagers already follow these accounts, they will no longer be able to see, interact, send them messages or see their comments.
The protection works both ways: these accounts will also not be able to follow the teen accounts, send them direct messages or comment on their posts.
Parents can see who their child has messaged but cannot read the DM.
Searches on sensitive subjects such as self-harm and eating disorders are already blocked for children.
Instagram will also send teenagers a reminder that they have been on the site for too long depending on the hours agreed with their parents. The sleep mode activated between 10pm and 7am ensures teenagers will not receive notifications during that period.
Setting limits
Sneha Rebecca, a parent with one million followers on Instagram, said it was key to understand how to set the guardrails.
“In this age of social media, this has to be set in place especially with the culture of doom scrolling,” she said referring to endless checking of content that can be distressing.
“I find a lot of kids are constantly depressed, they feel like they are triggered, they feel like they can't move forward without constantly scrolling. These rules will not choke them and gives them privacy since parents cannot read their DMs. Setting time limits is also very important. As a parent, it would have been hard but Instagram has done it for us, which is good.”
Sheen Gurrib, who has more than 800,000 Instagram followers, said it was crucial to protect young minds.
“Even as adults, we experience how social media impacts our moods, there is constant comparison around us. Imagine the impact on younger minds that have still not developed, that’s why it's so important to protect them. It’s important to have a healthy environment.
“The idea is to create content to educate parents – many may not understand the risk their kid is exposed to. It will be an uphill battle because we often can’t control what kids have access to but we need to make a start so change happens.”
