Meta tightens controls on teen Facebook and Instagram accounts in New Zealand

Amid global controversy regarding young people’s relationship with social media, tech giant Meta is tightening the controls around the Teen Accounts on its various platforms.

Based partly on parental feedback, as well as the classic 13+ ratings used by the Motion Picture Association, the updated settings are intended to further keep age-inappropriate content out of the devices of users who are under 18.

Meta spokesperson Mia Garlick told rova it’s building on groundwork already done to protect young people on the platforms.

“These are accounts that we've already designed specifically for people between 13 to 18, which have higher levels of default protections. What we're announcing today is that these have a new level of 13+ content settings on them so that the experience young people have in these teen accounts will be similar to what they'd see in an age-appropriate movie.”

Included in the changes are restrictions on posts containing strong language, drug paraphernalia and certain risky stunts.

Teen users users will be blocked from ‘following’ accounts which have either been found to frequently share such content, or have usernames and bios which suggest these sorts of things might be on offer.

On the flip side, these accounts will also be unable to interact with teens by following them, sending them direct messages or commenting on their posts.

With Meta platforms like Instagram already blocking search terms relating to topics such as self-harm and eating disorders, teen users will now also be prevented from searching for a wide range of things like alcohol or gore, with work underway to keep it blocked even when misspelled.

In the all-important ‘recommendations’ feed offered by Meta’s various platforms., underage users won’t have mature content pushed into their feeds, even if shared by someone they follow.

Finally, in the ever-expanding world of artificial intelligence, the company’s chatbots are to be prevented from giving age-inappropriate responses to people on Teen Accounts.

Along with the new default settings, an even stricter version is being introduced for parents who prefer extra controls. Users who have ‘Limited Content’ enabled will have further filters applied to their accounts, and will not be able to see, leave or receive comments under posts.

The obvious question in all this is how exactly Meta will know whether a user is underage or not.

Around the world, governments have attempted to implement age controls on social media, with reportedly mixed results. As Garlick explains, their system is based on predictive analysis of how underage users behave on their platforms.

“We've built an age classifier that looks at a wide range of different signals about how an account is interacting with our services, and we've built models which can predict whether somebody is over or under 18. So, we’re trying to make sure that we're giving people the right experience regardless of what they may state their age to be."

"As the technology is getting more sophisticated around proactive detection technologies, we're really trying to build on the research and the feedback that we've had from young people and parents.”

Time will tell if these technologies do end up proving effective, but for now it is clear that the growing chorus of outrage around young people’s social media use is forcing a response from one of the biggest players in the sector.