Meta launches new teen safety features, removes 635,000 accounts that sexualize children

The mother company of Instagram Meta has introduced new security features to protect adolescents who use its platforms, including information on accounts that send them a message and an option to block and report accounts with a single blow

Instagram Meta’s parent company has introduced new security features to protect adolescents who use its platforms, including information on accounts that send them a message and an option to block and report the accounts with a single blow.

The company also announced on Wednesday that it had deleted thousands of accounts which left sexualized comments or asked for sexual images to accounts led by adults under the age of 13. Among these, 135,000 commented and 500,000 others were linked to accounts which “interacted inappropriately,” said Meta in a blog article.

Increased measures arrive that social media companies face a meticulous examination of the way their platform affects mental health and well-being of young users. This includes the protection of children against adult predators and crooks who ask – then extort them for naked images.

Meta said that adolescent users have blocked more than a million accounts and reported another million after seeing a “security notice” reminding people to be “cautious in private messages and block and report everything that makes them uncomfortable”.

Earlier this year, Meta began to test the use of artificial intelligence to determine if children lie on their age on Instagram, which is only technically authorized for those over 13 years of age. If it is determined that a user distorts their age, the account will automatically become a teenage account, which has more restrictions than an adult account. Adolescent accounts are deprived by default. Private messages are limited so that adolescents can only receive them from people to which they follow or are already connected. In 2024, the company did private adolescent accounts by default.

Meta faces prosecution of dozens of American states which accuse him of harming young people and of contributing to the mental health crisis of young people by knowing knowingly and deliberately designing features on Instagram and Facebook which toxicom through children to its platforms.