Instagram and PG-13 Content Rating: Lessons from Television on Internet Regulation and Attention Control

Instagram is increasingly transforming into a TV-like model, a development welcomed by some parents but fundamentally reflecting tech companies' relentless pursuit of maximizing user attention. Recently, the company unveiled a new default content setting for teen accounts, designed to display content "similar to what they might see in a PG-13 rated movie." (Additional settings are also available, offering content equivalent to PG and R ratings for teens, with parental consent required for changes). Furthermore, Instagram is reportedly exploring the launch of its own TV app, enabling users to watch Reels on large home television screens.

These developments strongly affirm Derek Thompson's vision, articulated shortly before Instagram's announcement: "Everything is TV." Thompson cites an FTC report revealing that only 7% of users' time on Instagram is spent watching content from people they know. Simultaneously, podcasts are spreading across platforms like Netflix, and AI can produce an endless stream of content designed to captivate your consciousness. Thompson describes the situation, stating: "Digital media, powered by algorithmic feeds, has transformed into super TV: more images, more videos, more isolation."

A Brief History of Television's Impact on Our Minds

Traditional television featured content that was not excessively provocative, thanks to a combination of technological limitations, strict federal regulations, and prevailing societal norms. There was a limited number of channels available, due to the restricted broadcast spectrum. Because of this spectrum limitation, the federal government, nearly a century ago, established a specialized agency to control the airwaves: the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

In the early years of television, there was significant concern that this medium could destroy American minds, especially those of young people. Renowned broadcaster Edward R. Murrow denounced the proliferation of TV entertainment programs as "the real opium of the people" in a 1957 interview with Time magazine. A few years later, in 1961, Newton Minow delivered his first speech as FCC chairman, describing television as a "vast wasteland... a procession of game shows, of complicated formulas for unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western badmen, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons." This man would certainly have loathed TikTok.

The negative aspects Minow pointed out were particularly serious because children could watch them whenever they stared at the screen. Eventually, the FCC censored the types of content that could be broadcast during certain hours. Obscene content was illegal on television, but as of 1978, some indecent or objectionable material was permitted between 10 PM and 6 AM, when children were presumed to be asleep. (You can thank George Carlin for that). This constituted an early form of age verification, which, as Instagram's recent announcement illustrates, remains a significant challenge online. It also appears to be not easily resolvable.

However, child protection is seemingly the only bipartisan driver for regulating "super TV" today. Whether it's due to social media's controversial contribution to the youth mental health crisis, or the "unacceptable risks" posed by AI-powered chatbots to children and teenagers, lawmakers have ample reasons to impose new regulations on the platforms that have become the broadcasters of the 21st century. In this context, Senators Richard Blumenthal and Marsha Blackburn, co-sponsors of the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), recently launched a campaign to push the bill through the Senate (again) before the end of the year. Statistics indicate that approximately 65% of American teenagers (13-17 years old) use Instagram, and 19% of them say they use it "almost constantly," underscoring the importance of such legislation in protecting youth in an increasingly complex digital space. Pew Research Center

Nevertheless, things are changing rapidly. When you consider new AI-powered feeds, such as OpenAI's Sora and Meta's Vibes, it becomes clear that digital media – or super TV, if you prefer – has its own problem of vast wastelands.

The Mirage of an Age-Appropriate Internet

It is difficult to block certain types of content when there is no single government agency monitoring the airwaves, or these days, the pipes that keep us connected to the internet. Therefore, the preferred path for regulation seems to be the creation of three internets: one for children under 13, one for teenagers, and one for adults. A PG, PG-13, and R-rated internet, if you will.

Successfully doing so requires identity verification, and the current state of age verification is a mess. In the past three years, 25 states have passed laws requiring adult content sites, specifically pornography, to verify user age. This is the R-rated internet. Many of these states also require age verification for social media platforms. Since the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) imposes restrictions on sites that allow users under 13, this is the PG-13 internet. Presumably, PG versions of sites would include some of these protections, including the ability to turn off addictive algorithms, as New York recently proposed.

By the way, online age verification is really hard. Most of the time, to confirm someone's age, you need to confirm their identity. Advocates of freedom of speech warn that strict age requirements will prevent anonymous adults from accessing content protected by the First Amendment. Civil liberties groups argue that age verification poses a significant security risk, a reasonable concern after a recent age verification company breach exposed the data of 70,000 Discord users. High-tech age verification methods, such as using AI to estimate user age based on activity or facial recognition to guess age based on their appearance, have not yet proven effective. Research shows that teenagers often use multiple tactics to bypass age verification systems, including lying about their birthdate, using adult data, or resorting to Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to mask their locations, which significantly limits the effectiveness of these systems.Wired

Considering the golden age of television, when game shows and bad words were the greatest dangers, you can see how much the risks have changed. Digital media is powered by mathematical equations so complex that even the people who wrote the code don't know how it works. Platforms like Instagram and TikTok are interactive and intentionally addictive. The use of these products has been linked to depression and anxiety and self-harm. Recent studies indicate that excessive social media use is associated with an increased risk of depression and anxiety by up to 27% in young people, and exposure to harmful content or negative social comparisons significantly contributes to these problems.American Psychological Association

If the "three internets" strategy succeeds, it will represent an improvement for parents who want their children to have an age-appropriate experience online. There will likely also be positive implications, such as better privacy protection, a hallmark of current laws protecting children online. This could also be beneficial for those of us who simply want to avoid accidentally seeing a murder on our phones.

Creating safer feeds for children, in a movie-rating style or otherwise, is a step towards making feeds safer for everyone. Or at least, it's proof that Instagram and its rivals are capable of doing so.