Meta Introduces New Protections for Teens

Meta introduced new protections for teens using its social media apps. Designed to ensure that teens have “safe, age-appropriate experiences,” the changes will affect their Facebook and Instagram accounts.

While Meta requires users to be at least 13 years of age to create an account, it has been regularly rolling out new features and experiences for users under 18 to create a dedicated experience for teens.

The new protections include moderation of content, search restrictions on Instagram, and an update to the default privacy settings for teen accounts.

These changes are being rolled out while Meta is currently facing legal action from more than 40 states. The lawsuit claims that Meta has built its products in a way that can be harmful to younger users and alleges it misled the public on the risks of using its platforms in a “scheme to exploit young users for profit.”

Meta has been working with adolescent development, psychology and mental health experts to better identify content that would be inappropriate for teens. Content deemed inappropriate is already removed from recommendations for Reels and Explore, but going forward it will also no longer appear in the Feed and Stories, even if it’s shared by someone the user follows.

Meta will continue to offer support for teens that reach out on social media for support on complex and important topics such as thoughts of self-harm or eating disorders. When teen users search for such content, Facebook and Instagram will redirect them to resources and information to get the support they need, but they will no longer see content posted by others on these subjects.

The social media conglomerate will also be updating the default settings for teen accounts, ensuring they fall in line with “the most restrictive content control settings” for Instagram and Facebook. This is currently in place for all newly created accounts and Meta has started deploying the settings for existing accounts.

Teens will be regularly reminded to check their privacy settings. They will also have access to a single step process to activate an experience that will improve privacy by restricting “who can report their content, tag or mention them or include their content in Reels or Remixes.” It will also limit who can send them direct messages and will help to hide offensive comments.