Meta rolls out new privacy updates for young people on Instagram and Facebook

  • Meta has announced they are introducing new privacy updates for young people on Facebook and Instagram.
  • The most notable change includes that everyone under the age of 16, or under the age of 18 in some countries, will be defaulted into private settings when they join Facebook.
  • Meta will also start testing ways to protect young people from messaging suspicious adults who they are not connected to.
  • They said an example of a suspicious account could be one that was recently blocked or reported by a young user.
  • Meta will also be working with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) to build a global platform for young people who are worried their intimate images have been shared online.
  • To find out more, go to the Tech Crunch website.

Pinterest reports increase in child exploitation and self-injury content removals

  • Pinterest’s latest Transparency Report has been published and it outlines content removals and other enforcement actions taken in the first half of 2022.
  • It highlighted that child sexual exploitation removals were raised in Q2, with Pinterest saying this was due to an update in their detection systems.
  • Self-injury and harmful behaviour, medical misinformation, graphic violence and threat removals were all raised in Q2 of 2022.
  • All of these removals are as part of Pinterest’s ongoing work to improve detection and reporting processes, however, they do say that the majority of violative material is removed before anyone sees it.
  • For more, go to the Social Media Today’s website.

Belfast pre-school concerns about staying open with the cost of living

  • A pre-school leader in Belfast has said there was “despair” in the non-statutory pre-school sector at a lack of adequate funding.
  • More than 350 pre-schools in Northern Ireland are in the non-statutory or private sector and receive funding from the government for pupils.
  • These pre-schools or ‘play groups’ are not childcare and have to deliver the same pre-school curriculum to pupils as statutory nursery schools or nursery units but do not receive that same funding.
  • Donna Mulhern from St Bernard’s Pre-School said “If funding is not increased with immediate effect, some non-statutory pre-schools in Northern Ireland will close their doors’.
  • For more on this story, visit the BBC website.