Meta announced Tuesday that all Instagram accounts for users under 18 will now be guided by PG-13 movie ratings by default, meaning teens will see content similar to what they’d see in a PG-13 film.
According to Meta’s October 14 news release, the update aims to reassure parents that teens are engaging with age-appropriate content and to align Instagram’s guidelines with standards parents already recognize.
Teens under 18 will automatically be placed in an updated 13+ setting and cannot opt out without a parent’s permission.
Meta acknowledged that some teens may attempt to bypass these protections and said it will use age-prediction technology to apply restrictions even if users misrepresent their age.
Under the PG-13 guidelines, Instagram will hide or avoid recommending posts containing strong language, risky stunts, or depictions of substances such as drugs or marijuana, as well as other content that could encourage harmful behaviors.
Teens will also be unable to follow or interact with accounts that regularly share age-inappropriate content and will not see results for mature search terms — including suicide, self-harm, alcohol, or gore — even when misspelled.
Meta also introduced a stricter parental control called “Limited Content,” allowing parents to filter out even more material from their teen’s feed and comments.
“The new Limited Content setting is designed to give parents more control over what their teen sees on Instagram. 96% of US parents said they appreciated having this option, whether they choose to opt their teen in or not,” wrote the company in the release.
Meta spokesperson Tara Hopkins told Fox Business that the new features demonstrate the company’s focus on improving user safety.
“We really do have your back. We have done so much research with parents to really understand the kinds of things that they’re most concerned about,” she said, per Fox Business.
Meta said it invited thousands of parents worldwide to rate real Instagram posts and provide feedback, collecting more than 3 million content ratings that helped refine the new age-appropriate guidelines.
The company said feedback from these surveys made parents more comfortable with content recommended to teens, noting that fewer than 2 percent of reviewed posts were considered inappropriate by most parents.
Meta said it will continue to run regular surveys and add tools for parents to flag posts they believe should be hidden from teens. The new settings begin rolling out today in the U.S., U.K., Australia, and Canada and will expand globally by year’s end.