Facebook and Messenger now also with teen accounts
The teen accounts first introduced for Instagram are also coming to Facebook and Messenger in the EU. Parents are given control options.
Instagram has had teen accounts for some time. Now they are also being introduced for Facebook and Messenger in the EU.
(Image: Meta)
Meta is extending its protection functions for teenagers in the EU to Facebook and the associated Messenger. As the company announced, parents can now also use this option in Germany, among other countries. It has already been introduced here with Instagram and is used by hundreds of millions of young people worldwide, as Meta announced.
Instagram Teen accounts were introduced for the first time in September 2024. The protection automatically applies to all users under the age of 16. They need permission from a parent to change certain settings. This includes the fact that teen accounts are private accounts by default. They must first accept new followers, and people who do not follow them cannot see or interact with the adolescents' content.
Everywhere with the highest protection level
Further restrictions apply to chats. Meta sets teens to the strictest settings so that they can only receive messages from people they follow or are already connected to. No sensitive content appears in the Explore and Reels sections by default. This includes combat, for example.
Teenagers can also only be tagged or mentioned by people they follow. The Hidden Words function is also activated in the teen accounts, which filters out offensive words and phrases from comments and chat requests to teenagers.
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Parents receive supervisory functions
Other teen features relate to consumption. Teenagers receive a message every day asking them to leave the app after 60 minutes. A sleep mode is also activated between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m., which mutes notifications overnight and automatically replies to private messages.
For parents, there are functions that allow them to see who their children have exchanged messages with in the last seven days. They can also set time limits for use or block use at night, for example.
(mki)
