"Starting new teens in a default restricted reachability setting could significantly reduce the volume of overall unwanted interactions in DMs"

• "DMs are where most unwanted interactions happen, but they can also happen in mentions and tags since there are no controls. Research strongly suggests that DM's are the most problematic interaction vector for teenagers on Instagram. Moreover, teens delete approximately 47% of the DM threads and requests they receive in the first 14 days on Instagram within four weeks, indicating that a large number of unwanted interactions involving new users occur through this channel. While people are not reporting, untagging, or deleting mentions and tags nearly as often (less than 1/30th as often), we know from research and anecdotal evidence that unwanted tags and mentions are a serious problem for celebrities, top media producers, and other top accounts. Furthermore, there is evidence that users are not aware of these settings." • "Teens want meaningful interactions from both people they know and people they don't, but they don't want inappropriate or spammy interactions. Defaulting teens to a restricted DM setting could reduce DMs associated with new follows by 60% or more, thereby preventing an important way that new users form positive connections with people they don't know, as well as with accounts of people they do know who have unidentifiable information from their profile. It's likely that this decision would significantly impact growth. Multiple signals from qualitative research with teens support this -- teens tell us that they are fearful of missing out if unconnected DMs are restricted." "In weighing the balance between 'safety' and 'value' for new teen accounts, the signals surfaced in this investigation suggest that we keep the current default interaction settings as-is. The value of DM's in promoting wanted social interactions form key pieces of a healthy Instagram experience and social graph growth in teens." "Insight 2. Starting new teens in a default restricted reachability setting could significantly reduce the volume of overall unwanted interactions in DMs, the primary vector by which people experience unwanted interactions."