Instagram partner schools can now post content only their students can view

Meta last year launched a school partnership program for Instagram, in which it promised to prioritize student reports of cyberbullying.

The company has now expanded the program to allow schools to post stories and notes that only their own students can view – alongside support for clubs, teams, and more …

Instagram School Partnership Program

Instagram is a platform that doesn’t exactly have the best of track records when it comes to teenage mental health. Even the company’s own internal research showed that Instagram could be harmful to as many as 20% of teenage girls using the apps by increasing anxieties about physical attractiveness and popularity, among other things.

Cyberbullying has been another significant problem for teen users of social networks, and Meta last year launched a program intended to help schools tackle the issue. When schools signed up to its partnership program, Meta promised that reports filed by students and staff would be prioritized.

Reports submitted by school partners that may violate Instagram’s Community Standards will be prioritized for review. Schools will also receive status updates on the reports and notifications as soon as Instagram takes action on the report.

New school features

Meta says it is today adding a number of new features to the program.

Channels. These allow schools to share updates to parents and students. Only school administrators can post messages in channels.

School Stories and notes. Both staff and students can post these, and they will only be visible by verified students at the school. School administrators can remove posts.

Clubs and Teams. Anyone in the school can create clubs and teams to act as a central hub for communicating relevant events and information.

Student directory. Students can access a directory of other students at their school on the platform. This is visible only to other students and teen followers they follow back.

Meta says that the new features are intended for use outside of classroom hours, noting that teen accounts allow parents to block usage during school hours.

Verification of high school students is carried out by UNiDAYS, the same company Apple uses to allow access to educational pricing.

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