Instagram: locking down an account, yours or a teenager’s
Twelve minutes, eight settings. They apply to your account and to your child’s, and in the second case do them together rather than behind their back: a setting made in secret is bypassed within the week.
- 01
Set the account to private
The pathProfilMenuParamètres et confidentialitéConfidentialité du compte
A public account is readable by any unknown adult, and its photos can be scraped in bulk. Put that way, the argument lands better than “because I said so”.
- 02
Limit mentions and tags to people you follow
The pathParamètresComment les autres peuvent interagir avec vousMentions
This is how accounts that tag strangers in dubious posts get into their feed.
- 03
Block messages from strangers
The pathParamètresComment les autres peuvent interagir avec vousMessages
The vast majority of approaches, romance scams and grooming alike, starts with a private message from an unfollowed account.
- 04
Hide activity status
The pathParamètresConfidentialité du compteStatut d’activité
Otherwise people know when you are online, therefore when you are not, therefore when you are away from home.
- 05
Turn on two-factor authentication by app
The pathParamètresSécuritéAuthentification à deux facteurs
Instagram is the most hijacked account of all, because it resells. An account with a thousand followers has a market price.
- 06
Remove linked apps
The pathParamètresSécuritéApplications et sites web
Filters, “which character are you” quizzes, stats tools. Many have full access and many have since shut down, leaving their tokens loose.
- 07
Turn off location sharing in stories
The pathParamètresConfidentialité du compteStory
Posting your live location announces where you are and, by deduction, where you are not. It is the most exposing setting and the least useful.
- 08
Request a data export, once
The pathParamètresVotre activitéTélécharger vos informations
Not to read it all, but to see the scale. It is the exercise that convinces a teenager better than any lecture.
You have been through all of them.
These settings do not need redoing every month, but they are worth checking after every major system update: that is when some of them quietly return to their original value.