Facebook announced a series of changes to its Instagram platform, including defaulting young people under 16 into private accounts, making it harder for potentially suspicious accounts to find young people and limiting the options advertisers have to reach young people with ads. The latter will also apply on Facebook and Messenger, reducing the amount of ads targeted at under-18s.
Everyone who is under 16 years old (or under 18 in certain countries) will be defaulted into a private account when they join Instagram. For young people who already have a public account on Instagram, the company will show them a notification highlighting the benefits of a private account and explaining how to change their privacy settings. It’ll still give young people the choice to switch to a public account or keep their current account public if they wish.
Facebook also developed new technology that will allow it to find accounts that have shown potentially suspicious behavior and stop those accounts from interacting with young people’s accounts.
Using this technology, it won’t show young people’s accounts in Explore, Reels or Accounts Suggested For You to these adults. If they find young people’s accounts by searching for their usernames, they won’t be able to follow them. They also won’t be able to see comments from young people on other people’s posts, nor will they be able to leave comments on young people’s posts. It’ll continue to look for additional places where it can apply this technology.
It’s rolling out these changes in the US, Australia, France, the UK and Japan to start and will look to expand to more countries soon.
Facebook is also making changes to how advertisers can reach young people with ads. Starting in a few weeks, it’ll only allow advertisers to target ads to people under 18 (or older in certain countries) based on their age, gender and location. This means that previously available targeting options, like those based on interests or on their activity on other apps and websites, will no longer be available to advertisers. These changes will be global and apply to Instagram, Facebook and Messenger.
When young people turn 18, it’ll notify them about targeting options that advertisers can now use to reach them and the tools provided to them to control their ad experience.
