Meta Takes New Steps to Protect Teenage Users

Meta has taken another step forward in its underage user protection, by highlighting its safety features and tools in a new way and making them both more visible and more accessible. 

A new ‘Safety Tips’ prompt has been added as a pop up within the chat tool on Instagram for younger users. This new box provides information on how to tell if a profile is genuine, what not to share with unknown users, and how to quickly restrict or even block a user at the press of a single button.

And the arrival of user protection updates doesn’t end there.

Meta has also enhanced its protection for parent-managed accounts and teen accounts by ensuring that these do not feature in the recommended accounts for potentially suspicious adult users. This means that the accounts of young users cannot be sold in packages of followers, and that these profiles will not be recommended on For You pages and other feeds.

What Else Does Meta Do to Protect Young Users?

These latest updates target very specific areas of concern, notably around how the accounts of younger users are being recommended to and found by adults, and how DMs are used.

The updates join a series of tools and blocks that are already in place, preventing young users from sharing location data and restricting their ability to message users that they don’t follow. 

Meta is also just one of the social media giants that’s putting more into checking the age of users when they sign up. Instagram and Facebook join the likes of TikTok and other platforms, that are keen to maintain their age barrier to protect underage users from joining until they are eligible.