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Facebook is making teen accounts more private by default

Facebook is making teen accounts more private by default




Facebook will enable more private settings by default for anyone under the age of 16 who signs up for the platform, the company announced Monday. For teens who already have accounts, Facebook will encourage them to use these settings as well as display a toggle that turns them on with a single tap.

Facebook's billing as "more private" settings restrict details on the account so that only a teen's friends can see the posts they're tagged in, their friend list, and the pages they follow, people and lists. They also require users to review posts in which they are tagged and only allow friends to comment on their public posts.

Facebook is doing more to protect teens from predatory adults. It is testing a way to prevent teens from messaging adults on the platform who have recently been blocked or reported by a young person. Facebook will no longer display these "suspicious" adults in recommendations for teens you may know, and will begin encouraging teens to report accounts they block. Meanwhile, on Instagram, the company is testing completely removing the message button on teen's accounts when viewed by a suspected adult.

Instagram had already rolled out similar comprehensive privacy features for teens in August. Similar to Facebook, Instagram began enabling the most restrictive Sensitive Content control setting for new users under the age of 16 by default, while encouraging teens on the platform to turn this setting on. The "low" sensitive content control setting means that users will not see more sexually explicit content on the platform, as well as photos and videos involving drugs, violence and tobacco products. Instagram also began preventing adults from messaging teens who don't follow them last year and began warning teens that the adult they're messaging may have used suspicious posts on the platform in the past. activity is displayed.

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