Instagram is introducing a PG-13 movie rating system to filter content for teens

Instagram will moderate content for users under 18 using filters guided by the PG-13 movie rating system, the platform’s parent company Meta announced Tuesday in its latest effort to address concerns about teens’ online safety.

The new system limits posts containing profanity, risky stunts, drugs or other content that could “encourage potentially harmful behavior.” The rules will also apply to Meta’s generative AI tools.

Under the safeguards, teen users will be blocked from following or interacting with accounts found to share content that is inappropriate for their age.

Meta noted that existing policies already block the recommendation of sexually suggestive content, explicit or disturbing images, and adult content, such as teen sales of tobacco or alcohol.

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“Teen accounts are already designed to protect teens from inappropriate content and over the past year we have further refined our age appropriateness guidelines to hide even more potentially inappropriate content in the updated default content setting of 13+,” the company said in its announcement.

“We’ve decided to align our policy more closely with an independent standard that parents are familiar with, so we’ve revised our age-appropriate guidelines against PG-13 movie ratings and updated them accordingly. While there are of course differences between movies and social media, we’ve made these changes so that teens’ experiences in the 13+ setting are closer to the Instagram equivalent of watching a PG-13 movie,” it added.

Teens won’t be able to opt out of the new system without parental consent, and parents can choose an even more restrictive setting for their children.

Similar to how suggestive content or strong language can be included in a PG-13 movie, Meta said that teens occasionally see similar content on Instagram, but that the company is working to keep such instances as rare as possible.

Teenagers cannot opt ​​out of the new system without their parents’ permission. (Lorenzo Di Cola/NurPhoto via Getty Images / Getty Images)

“This is the most significant update to Teen Accounts since we introduced them last year, and builds on the automatic protections Teen Accounts already provides to hundreds of millions of teens worldwide,” Meta said. “We know that teens may try to avoid these restrictions, so we will use age prediction technology to place teens in certain content protections, even if they claim to be adults.”

The new system comes amid criticism and lawsuits alleging the company failed to protect teen users from harmful content or misled them about the psychological harm of its platforms.

A September report found that several Instagram security features are not working properly.

Meta was also found to allow inappropriate chatbot behavior, with bots engaging in “conversations that are romantic or sensual.”

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Teen users are blocked from following or interacting with accounts found to share age-inappropriate content. (Jens Büttner/photo alliance via Getty Images / Getty Images)

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The company added teen safeguards to its AI products in August by training its systems to avoid flirty exchanges and discussions about self-harm or suicide with young users.

The new rating settings have been released in the US, UK, Australia and Canada, with a full launch expected by the end of the year.

“We recognize that no system is perfect and we strive to improve over time,” Meta said. “We hope this update reassures parents that we’re working to ensure teens see safe, age-appropriate content on Instagram by default, while also giving them more ways to shape their teen experience.”

Meta is also introducing more safeguards for teen users on Facebook.

Reuters contributed to this report.