Meta wants to implement new changes to how its apps regulate advertising and user under 18. The new development makes it difficult for advertisers on Instagram and Facebook to use personalized ads besides tracking in-app activity to influence teens.
Quick Facts
- As a part of this upgrade, young users will be backed by more choices regarding which ads are visible to them
- From February 2023, Meta will discontinue the option that targets advertising to teen users on the basis of gender
- They will use age and location as the basis of making personalized ads for youngsters
- Advertisers can no longer target personalized ads to under-18 users using their in-app activity
Once these changes are launched on the platform, all in-app activity will focus on the user’s age and location to generate personalized ads. Meta revealed that the location is important to determine which products and services are accessible in a user’s locality.
Meta’s other apps, Facebook and Instagram are expected to release similar updates and new features for the teenage crowd. They will have the option to see less of what is displayed. Based on that information, the platform will generate specialized ads for these youngsters.
These apps are looking to establish privacy protections for Meta’s teenage crowd.
Why are Twitter ads different for teens?
In 2021, Instagram did not allow advertisers to target teens by monitoring their interests or online activity beyond the app. Ireland’s Data Protection Commission did a background check on how managed accounts for kids 13 to 17.
The company made those accounts public by default and had no restrictions for minors who chose to keep business accounts and didn’t care about disclosing their credentials to the public.
In 2022, Meta was fined nearly $400 million for its negligence. The company back then disapproved of the Irish regulator for punishing it for its now discarded policies.
Instagram kids were never allowed to have private accounts or forced to switch from public to private until the year 2021. Meta could’ve stopped running ads for teens later on, but the move was not well-planned and was deemed unreasonable.
So Meta discontinued ad targeting based on the interests and in-app activity of teenagers. After the limitations imposed in 2021, advertisers will not be able to target teens using in-app engagement, like keeping tabs on Instagram and Facebook pages they follow or like.
When will these new ad-regulation updates taking place?
From March 2023, teens will have the say in choosing the ads they would see. Under Ad Preferences, they can mark topics that they’re not interested in so that they’re shown viewer ads by these platforms.
There is no way of discontinuing ads about a few products or services in their entirety. Such examples include celebrities, make-up content besides other topics on self-love and traveling. The way these social media sites handle teen users has always been a subject of scrutiny and they usually tend to get creative rather than proactive when their fractions are addressed.
The Pharmaceutical Journal posted a report on posts that encourage drug usage for weight loss which then became a hit among teen users. Subsequently, people were outraged and a few posts flagged to the company were erased to minimize the controversy.
Meanwhile, Instagram launched a few features that regulate how young users can use the app. In 2022, it was working on a feature that subtly whisks teens away from content that could harm them if accessed for extended periods.
Meta’s advertising restrictions are built around the idea that “teens aren’t necessarily as equipped as adults to make decisions about how their online data is used for advertising.” However, Meta still allows kids to view advertising to kids in moderate amounts because age and location targeting is important for generating age-appropriate and location-specific ads.
