It’s about to get that much more difficult for teens to view harmful content online.
Instagram and Facebook announced in a blog post today that Meta is automatically placing all accounts owned by teens under the most restrictive content control settings available. In doing so, these platforms will prompt all teen accounts to update their privacy settings. The company already applied the most restrictive controls for teens who join Instagram or Facebook, but now it is putting it in place for teens who are already using the apps.
The company is also restricting these accounts from viewing posts about suicide, self-harm, graphic violence, and eating disorders. If a post is about any of those topics, a teen won’t be able to see it on their account — even if the content is shared by someone they follow. The new rules are being rolled out to users under 18 years old right now and will be fully rolled out “in the coming months.”
“While we allow people to share content discussing their own struggles with suicide, self-harm and eating disorders, our policy is not to recommend this content and we have been focused on ways to make it harder to find,” Meta said in a blog post. “Now, when people search for terms related to suicide, self-harm and eating disorders, we’ll start hiding these related results and will direct them to expert resources for help. We already hide results for suicide and self-harm search terms that inherently break our rules and we’re extending this protection to include more terms.”
This comes at a time in which Meta remains under fire for its inability to keep young people safe on its platforms.
Meta is scheduled to testify before the Senate on child safety at the end of this month, along with TikTok, Snapchat, Discord, and X. All the while, more than 40 states are suing Meta for contributing to young people’s mental health problems, alleging that Meta “profoundly altered the psychological and social realities of a generation of young Americans.” Time will tell if this update soothes everyone’s mounting fears.
