Meta now has 13+ teenager accounts active on Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger, whose aim is to curb repetitive and damaging feeds.
From today, Meta promises to enforce stringent content settings on all teen accounts on its social media platforms. This global roll-out process was announced last year, and Meta says it worked with trust-and-safety firm Alice (previously called ActiveFence) in validating and testing the teen feature before it was released.
In its post, Meta says, “The Instagram teen account with the default 13+ setting experienced 68 percent less mature content compared to the teen experience of the same age on rival social networks. When mature content was shown on an Instagram teen account, its intensity was lower than that of mature content from rivals and even from 13+-rated movies.”
Meta also announced that the firm will try to cut down specific content types which appear repeatedly on Instagram accounts, such as those dealing with nutrition, weight-lifting or managing anxiety. The company says that these posts should be balanced with other types of content rather than showing them repeatedly.
Would you like to receive news updates on WhatsApp?
Chat on WhatsApp
A September report led by Meta whistleblower Arturo Bejar and the research organization Cybersecurity for Democracy found that, during testing, several of Meta’s core teen safety features failed to work as advertised.
Meta announced a major change to Instagram teen accounts in October, comparing content restrictions to PG-13 films, and the company was immediately criticized for using the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) rating without their permission. Following a formal cease-and-desist notice, Meta and the MPAA reached a settlement in March, claiming that Meta’s use of the PG-13 rating was false advertising.
Amidst a landmark trial on social media addiction, Meta reconfigured its teen settings and later added new features, including expanded parental supervision tools and global age detection.
