Meta expands teen safety features to limit harmful content after $375M legal verdict

Meta Introduces Limited Content Setting Across Platforms

Meta unveiled new safety features for teenagers on Tuesday, marking its first major policy shift since the company faced legal losses in March over child safety on Meta's platforms 1

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. The tech giant is expanding its efforts to limit harmful content for teens across Instagram, Facebook and Messenger through a feature called Limited Content setting 2

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. This setting will restrict how frequently young users see posts about topics like nutrition, weightlifting and anxiety coping strategies in their Explore, Feed and Reels pages. While such content "can be helpful," Meta stated it "should be balanced with other types of content rather than shown repeatedly" 1

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. Hundreds of millions of teenagers use Meta's apps, which also include WhatsApp, each day 1

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Legal Pressure Drives Policy Changes

The new Meta safety features arrive in the wake of significant legal setbacks for the company. In March, a Los Angeles jury found Meta and YouTube liable for harming a young woman through platform features like infinite scroll and beauty filters 1

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. That same month, a New Mexico jury ordered Meta to pay $375 million for violating state consumer protection laws, including enabling sexual exploitation, in a lawsuit brought by New Mexico's attorney general 1

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. The verdict was based on violations of New Mexico's Unfair Practices Act, which prohibits unfair, deceptive and misleading business ventures across the state 2

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. A bench trial kicked off Monday for a judge to review the New Mexico attorney general's requested protections for users under 18 2

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Expanding Content Rating System and Teen Account Protections

The changes build on Meta's Teen Accounts program, created in 2024, which automatically made the accounts of teenage users private and gave parents more control over their children's accounts 1

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. Meta introduced a content rating system for Instagram in October, modeled after movie rating criteria; that system is now expanding to teenagers on Facebook and Messenger 1

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. Teen accounts are private by default for underage users, requiring them to manually accept new followers and limiting who can message, tag or mention them to people they follow 2

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. The content settings also hide content deemed inappropriate for teens and restrict their ability to view links to inappropriate content or chat with accounts that mostly share this type of content 2

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AI Safety Measures and Third-Party Verification

Meta has also addressed concerns around artificial intelligence and young users. In October, the company unveiled safety policies around AI chatbot interactions, and in January, Meta blocked teenagers from messaging Instagram's A.I. characters, which are chatbots that take on different personalities 1

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. Conversations between teenagers and the Meta A.I. chatbot now have the same kinds of content restrictions as Meta's movie ratings system 1

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. The company has also incorporated artificial intelligence to better detect and remove users younger than 13 years old from its platforms 2

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. To measure effectiveness, Meta said it had worked with Alice, a trust and safety organization, to assess how well its policies perform 1

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. The company also had parents rate millions of pieces of content to help fine-tune its moderation system 1

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. Meta has faced scrutiny around child safety issues for over a decade and is under increasing pressure from thousands of lawsuits filed by parents, state attorneys general and school districts 1

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. While Congress has struggled to get most kids safety legislation across the finish line, safety groups have turned to the courts 2

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