Meta is taking its “13+” content settings for Teen Accounts global. The company said today that the setting, which it likens to a movie rating, will now apply by default to teenagers across Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger worldwide, extending a system it first introduced last October in the US, UK, Australia, and Canada. According to Meta, nine in ten teens have stayed in the default setting since that launch rather than seeking to change it.
The idea is to shape what shows up for a teen by default. On Facebook, the new 13+ setting is designed to hide content Meta deems inappropriate for teens in Feed and Reels, and to limit teens’ interactions with Profiles, Pages, Groups, and Events that mostly post such material.
On Messenger, it restricts teens from opening links to that content or chatting with accounts that primarily share it on Facebook. A stricter option called Limited Content, already available on Instagram, is due to arrive on Facebook and Messenger later this year.
Meta has leaned on parents to calibrate what “appropriate” means. The company says hundreds of thousands of parents have rated more than 15 million pieces of content, and that in its most recent survey at the end of April, covering parents in the US, UK, Australia, and Canada reviewing recommended Facebook posts, fewer than 2% were judged inappropriate for teens by most parents.
