Meta $META announced Tuesday that it is extending its teen account content restrictions to Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger worldwide, while also testing a new Instagram feature designed to prevent young users from seeing too much of any single type of content in their feeds.
Tuesday's announcement extends a program Meta originally rolled out in a handful of countries last October. Teen accounts are currently defaulted to a content filter — labeled the 13+ setting — that screens out material the company considers age-inappropriate. Facebook and Messenger will gain an additional tier called "Limited Content," which applies even tighter restrictions, sometime before the end of the year.
A separate Instagram feature currently in testing would cap how frequently a given topic appears in a teenager's feed. In explaining the rationale, Meta said in a statement: "We recognize that some content — like posts about nutrition, weightlifting, or how to cope with anxiety — can be helpful, but it should be balanced with other types of content rather than shown repeatedly."
The announcements follow two courtroom defeats for Meta on child safety claims. A Los Angeles jury ruled against Meta and Alphabet $GOOGL's YouTube in March, holding both companies responsible for damages caused to a young woman by design choices such as infinite scroll and beauty filters and awarding her a combined $6 million, according to The New York Times. Also in March, New Mexico's attorney general secured a $375 million jury verdict against Meta over state consumer protection violations that the suit alleged included enabling the sexual exploitation of minors, according to The New York Times.
To assess how well its policies perform, Meta partnered with Alice, a trust and safety organization. The company also enlisted parents to review millions of individual pieces of content as part of an effort to sharpen its moderation system.
All of these changes fall under Meta's Teen Accounts program, launched in 2024, which defaulted young users' profiles to private and broadened parental oversight tools. A content classification framework for Instagram — built along the lines of film rating standards and introduced last October — is being broadened to cover Facebook and Messenger as well. According to The New York Times, those same classification-based restrictions now govern what teenagers can encounter when chatting with Meta's AI chatbot.
Meta faces pressure from thousands of lawsuits filed by parents, school districts, and state attorneys general over allegations that its platforms harm young users.