Meta tightens rules for minors: bans live broadcasts on Instagram and Facebook

Mark Zuckerberg and his engineers are becoming stricter with the usage rules of two of their platforms: Instagram and Facebook. In 2024, the company announced the creation of accounts for teenagers that include a series of measures to "protect minors from inappropriate content and malicious individuals." Now, they are taking it a step further, and young people will be prohibited from conducting live broadcasts.

With this decision, those under 16 will have a default setting that prevents live broadcasts on both Instagram and Facebook, a measure that will be extended to other networks owned by Mark Zuckerberg in the coming months. Additionally, these teenagers will see certain images blurred in their direct message inbox, whenever the algorithm deems the image as suspicious content.

The purpose of these restrictions is to prevent teenagers from being exposed to malicious individuals and inappropriate content. This way, parents have more options to restrict, if they wish, the activity and content to which teenagers are exposed on Instagram. Only parents will have the ability to deactivate these filters and permissions.

These updates are not the only ones coming to teenage accounts on Instagram and Facebook. Teenagers will receive reminders after using the network for an hour per day, and the silent mode will be activated by default at night.

They will also not be able to interact with other adults; stories, tags, mentions, and comments will be limited to their closest circle who are of the same age as the minor.

According to Meta, since September, when they launched accounts for teenagers, 97% of users aged 13 to 15 in the United States use the social network with active restrictions, allowing them to have a safer experience. There are a total of 54 million accounts, a figure that will increase as the functionality is deployed globally. For now, the measure is predominant in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia, but it is only a matter of time before it also reaches Spain and other regions.

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