Meta has announced that the Instagram Teen Accounts will be guided by PG-13 movie ratings by default. This means that teens will see content on Instagram that’s similar to what they’d see in a PG-13 movie.
Teens under 18 will be automatically placed into an updated 13+ setting, and they won’t be able to opt out without a parent’s permission. Meta stated that because all families are different, it has also introduced a new, stricter setting for parents who prefer a more restrictive experience for their teen.
“We invited thousands of parents worldwide to share their feedback with us, helping us shape these changes and ensure our efforts align with their expectations,” it added.
“This is the most significant update to Teen Accounts since we introduced them last year, and builds on the automatic protections already provided by Teen Accounts to hundreds of millions of teens globally. We know teens may try to avoid these restrictions, which is why we’ll use age prediction technology to place teens into certain content protections – even if they claim to be adults,” Meta mentioned.
Furthermore, it stated that just like you might see some suggestive content or hear some strong language in a PG-13 movie, teens may occasionally see something like that on Instagram but they are going to keep doing all we can to keep those instances as rare as possible.
“We recognise no system is perfect, and we’re committed to improving over time. We hope this update reassures parents that we’re working to show teens safe, age-appropriate content on Instagram by default, while also giving them more ways to shape their teen’s experience,” Meta stated.
Updating Content Policies for Teens, Guided by PG-13 Ratings
Teen Accounts were already designed to protect teens from inappropriate content and, over the past year, Meta further refined our age-appropriate guidelines to hide even more potentially inappropriate content in the updated default 13+ content setting.
It decided to more closely align its policies with an independent standard that parents are familiar with, so it reviewed the age-appropriate guidelines against PG-13 movie ratings and updated them accordingly. While of course there are differences between movies and social media, Meta made these changes so teens’ experiences in the 13+ setting feel closer to the Instagram equivalent of watching a PG-13 movie.
In addition to its longstanding policies – which already hide or prohibit the recommendation of sexually suggestive content, graphic or disturbing images, and adult content like tobacco or alcohol sales from teens – its updated policies will now go even further. This includes hiding or not recommending posts with strong language, certain risky stunts, and additional content that could encourage potentially harmful behaviors, such as posts showing marijuana paraphernalia.
In a recent survey conducted by Ipsos and commissioned by Meta, 95% of US parents of teens said they think these updated settings will be helpful, and 90% said they’ll make it easier to understand the kind of content their teen is likely to see on Instagram.
Expanding Protections Across Teen Accounts
Meta said, “We spent several months improving and refining our technology to proactively identify content that goes against our updated guidelines, and we’re using this improved technology across Instagram, including:”
Accounts: Teens will no longer be able to follow accounts that Meta has found regularly share age-inappropriate content, or if their name or bio suggests the account is inappropriate for teens. If teens already follow these accounts, they’ll no longer be able to see or interact with their content, send them DMs, or see their comments under anyone’s posts. Meta won’t recommend these accounts to teens, and we’ll make it harder for teens to find these accounts in Search. These protections work both ways: these accounts won’t be able to follow teens, send them DMs, or comment on their posts.
Search: Meta already block search terms related to certain sensitive topics, like suicide, self-harm, and eating disorders. Now we’ll block teens’ ability to see content results for a wider range of mature search terms, such as ‘alcohol’ or ‘gore’- and it is working to make sure these terms will still be blocked if they’re misspelled.
Content Experience: Teens shouldn’t see content that goes against our updated guidelines in recommendations (Explore, Reels, and in-Feed), Feed, and Stories – even when shared by someone they follow – or comments. If someone sends a teen a link to such content in DMs, they won’t be able to open it.
AI: Meta has also updated its AI experiences for teens to be guided by PG-13 ratings by default, meaning AIs should not give age-inappropriate responses that would feel out of place in a PG-13 movie.
