Social Media for 70 Million Indonesians to Be Blocked Tomorrow: How to Keep Using Instagram

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia - The Instagram platform has rules for teenage users through the Teen Accounts scheme. This policy targets users aged 13-17 with automatic settings, from privacy and interactions to usage time restrictions. This step aligns with government regulatory pushes outlined in Ministerial Regulation on Communication and Digital Affairs (Komdigi) Number 9 of 2026, a derivative of Government Regulation Number 17 of 2025 or PP Tunas, effective from 28 March 2026. Here, the role of parents becomes crucial. Instagram provides a supervision feature that allows parents to monitor their child’s activities without taking over the account. Parents can set daily usage durations, see which accounts interact with the child, and approve or reject security setting changes. With this supervision, parents can approve or reject requests from their teenage children to loosen their safety settings. Not entirely free For 16-year-olds, Instagram usage is no longer entirely unrestricted. From the initial registration, the account will be set as private. Although users aged 16-17 are given leeway to change settings, including making the account public, unless they have set up supervision with parents or guardians. Meanwhile, existing accounts for teens under 16 will be set to private. They need permission from parents or guardians to change their accounts to public. Teens aged 16-17 with existing public accounts will not be automatically set to private, and they can continue keeping their accounts public without permission. From the interaction side, the system is also tightened. Teen accounts can automatically only receive messages from accounts they follow or have previously interacted with. Tags, mentions, and content remix features are also limited to friendship circles. Instagram also activates additional protection by blurring images detected to contain nudity in direct messages. However, nudity content protection is currently not supported on desktop or web browser or Meta Quest. Not only that, content appearing on the timeline is also filtered. Teens will only see content categorised for ages 13 and above. Potentially disruptive comments will be automatically hidden, as will suspicious message requests filtered by the system. Another setting is time control. Instagram automatically activates sleep mode every day from 10:00 PM to 07:00. During this period, notifications will be muted, and the system will encourage users to stop using the app. How parents supervise their child’s Instagram account Based on Instagram’s official guide, the supervision process cannot be done unilaterally. Both the child and parent must mutually agree through the invitation system. The mechanism starts with one party, the teen or parent, sending a supervision invitation. That invitation must then be accepted for the supervision feature to activate. If the invitation is sent by the child, there is an additional step required, namely ensuring that the invitation recipient is indeed the correct parent or guardian. After the parent accepts the invitation, the child must confirm that identity before supervision begins. Conversely, if the invitation comes from the parent, supervision activates immediately once the invitation is accepted by the child. Instagram emphasises that only one parent can supervise one teen account. Meanwhile, each parent can still supervise more than one child but with certain technical limitations, including only being able to have one active invitation link at a time. From the eligibility side, this system only applies to teen users aged 13-17 and parents aged at least 18 years. Both must also have active Instagram accounts to send or receive supervision invitations. After the invitation is accepted, the system will send a notification to the inviting party. Conversely, if the invitation is rejected, the sender will also receive a rejection notification. Instagram also reminds that this feature can only run optimally if the app has been updated to the latest version, both on Android devices, iPhone, or via browser.