Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, has announced new safety measures aimed at providing teens with age-appropriate experiences on its platforms.
One of the key changes is the company’s handling of sensitive topics such as self-harm. While acknowledging the importance of these stories, Meta recognizes their complexity and potential to be inappropriate for all young audiences. As a result, the company will begin removing content related to self-harm and other age-inappropriate material from the experiences of teens on Instagram and Facebook. This includes the feed and Stories, ensuring a safer and more age-appropriate environment.
Dr. Rachel Rodgers, an associate professor at Northeastern University, praised Meta’s evolving policies as a critical step in creating safer spaces for teens on social media. The changes are not only consistent with the current understanding of teen safety and well-being, but they also provide opportunities for parents to engage in meaningful conversations with their teen children about dealing with difficult topics.
In addition, Meta said it remains committed to providing support by sharing resources from specialized organizations such as the National Alliance on Mental Illness when users post content related to struggling with self-harm or eating disorders. These changes are being rolled out gradually for teens under the age of 18 and are expected to be fully integrated with Instagram and Facebook in the coming months.
To further enhance these protections, Meta is providing updates to content recommendation settings, which automatically place teens in the most restrictive content controls settings. This step, along with parental supervision tools, is intended to give parents confidence that their teen children are accessing age-appropriate content online.
Additional measures include hiding search results related to suicide, self-harm, and eating disorders, making it more difficult for users to find potentially sensitive content. Additionally, Meta will encourage teens to update their privacy settings regularly, encouraging them to have a more private online experience with just one click.
