Meta hitches Teen Account content settings to MPA’s PG-13 rating

Meta finds itself in a tight spot. Having built its empire hoovering up users by the billions in an unregulated market, the owner of Facebook and Instagram is currently being asked to reconsider whether what goes on its platforms – and, indeed, the platforms themselves – are appropriate for children. In response, the company has mustered immense legal power to litigate online safety laws. It has built up an argument that app stores, not platforms, should be responsible for age assurance measures, and that parents, not Instagram, should be responsible for what kids look at online. And it has thrown a number of age assurance ideas at the proverbial wall to see what sticks, notably under the banner of Instagram’s Teen Accounts.

The latest may be the limpest yet. A credulous piece in the New York Times reports on Meta’s announcement that it will “begin limiting the content its teenage users can see, based on the PG-13 ratings system used by the film industry.” This will apply to recommended videos, as well as AI chatbots.

Meta’s own description of the feature is as follows: “Instagram is revamping Teen Accounts to be guided by PG-13 movie ratings, meaning teens will see content that’s similar to what they’d see in a PG-13 movie, by default.”

“Just like you might see some suggestive content or hear some strong language in a PG-13 movie, teens may occasionally see something like that on Instagram – but we’re going to keep doing all we can to keep those instances as rare as possible.”

The setting will be applied automatically to Teen Accounts.

The PG-13 rating comes from the scheme developed by the Motion Picture Association in the mid-1980s, in response to a handful of films that skirted the line between adventure and horror.  One tier above plain old Parental Guidance (PG), PG-13 indicates that “parents are strongly cautioned – some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.”

“While of course there are differences between movies and social media,” Meta says, “we made these changes so teens’ experiences in the 13+ setting feel closer to the Instagram equivalent of watching a PG-13 movie.”

In practical terms, that means that Meta is expanding its content moderation, which currently hides or prohibits the recommendation of sexually suggestive content, graphic or disturbing images, and adult content like tobacco or alcohol ads from teens, to now also include “hiding or not recommending posts with strong language, certain risky stunts, and additional content that could encourage potentially harmful behaviors, such as posts showing marijuana paraphernalia.”

Teens will be limited in terms of accounts they can follow, barred from those that Meta has found to regularly share age-inappropriate content. Nor will such accounts be able to follow teens.  Restrictions on search will filter out additional terms (“alcohol” and “gore,” for instance).

It has “also updated our AI experiences for teens to be guided by PG-13 ratings by default, meaning AIs should not give age-inappropriate responses that would feel out of place in a PG-13 movie.”

Since it is a U.S. system, the PG-13 rating won’t mean much to users in Europe and the UK, which use different schemes. But that is largely irrelevant, since Meta likely knows the action is effectively meaningless. Applying film ratings to social platforms is like applying food quality ratings to huffable glue, in that kids do not generally get addicted to movies, and a character in a movie cannot try and arrange an in-person meeting with a child.

Rather than an effective method to ensure kids don’t experience the negative effects of social media, this is yet another PR stunt on the part of the Silicon Valley giant – much like those described in a recent report supported by a Facebook whistleblower, “Teen Accounts, Broken Promises,” which argues that “time and time again, Meta has proven they simply cannot be trusted.”

Article Topics

age verification  |  biometric age estimation  |  biometrics  |  children  |  digital ID  |  facial age estimation (FAE)  |  Instagram  |  Meta  |  social media