Meta expands protections for teens on Facebook and Instagram

Meta wants to once again improve the protection features for teens on Facebook and Instagram. Depending on the country and the legal situation, the measures apply to persons under the age of 16 or under the age of 18. These teenage users then enjoy more privacy by default. In addition, we proceed more rigidly against “suspicious persons”.

These are users who were recently blocked or reported by a teenager. They will then no longer be among the recommended people who might know them among the young people. In addition, a new procedure is being tested specifically on Instagram, in which the mentioned suspects no longer see a message button on teenage accounts. You will then not be able to make any more contact attempts.

New notifications also aim to draw the attention of existing young customers to existing protection features. Young users are also encouraged to restrict who can see their friends list, who can see the people and pages they follow, who can see posts they’ve been tagged in, and who can comment on their public posts. They are also advised to first check the posts in which they have been tagged before posting those in their profile.

Meta has also partnered with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) to better educate teens about the consequences of what can happen when they share intimate images. It is hoped that the prevention will prevent young people from sending suggestive images and possibly being blackmailed afterwards. They also work with Thorn and their NoFiltr brand to run relevant campaigns.

For example, it has been established that young people often share critical images without malicious intent. Occasionally people are horrified and then share the images out of anger, or believe a bad joke or see them as examples of bad taste – without realizing the consequences for those involved. Nevertheless, sharing of course violates the terms of Facebook and Instagram, so you also want to clarify further.

We could now say: the best way to avoid such situations is to only share content that is not too personal. But young people often have different opinions about “the old guard”. In the worst case, raised index fingers tend to elicit defiant reactions, but at least the illumination is better.

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