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Meta is adding more content restrictions to its Teen Safety accounts.
By default, users under the age of 16 will now be blocked from going live and opening images containing suspected nudity. To lift these restrictions, teens will need to get parental approval. Updates will roll out in the next couple of months, Meta says.
Meta is also expanding Teen Accounts to Facebook and Messenger users in the US, UK, Australia, and Canada today and to other regions “soon.”
(Credit: Meta)Introduced last September, Teen Accounts on Instagram identifies users under 16 and restricts their access to some features and settings. It was designed to "address parents’ biggest concerns, including who their teens are talking to online, the content they’re seeing, and whether their time is being well spent," Meta said at the time.
Teen accounts are private by default, and all users under 16 automatically get them at sign-up. Apart from built-in restrictions for sensitive content, messaging, tagging, and time limits, the feature has options for parents to look at who their kids are chatting with and what topics they are exploring. It also allows them to set a custom daily limit and restrict app usage during certain hours. Changes to most settings require parental approval.
At least 54 million teens have been assigned Teen Accounts since launch, Meta says. Per an internal survey, around 94% of parents found the feature useful.
However, last month, Meta admitted that its age-verification technology for Teen Accounts had “inadvertently locked out some parents and guardians who shared devices with their teens.” As a result, the company is now testing a new method wherein suspected teens will be placed under Teen Accounts, regardless of their provided birthdates.