Instagram, Facebook overhaul news feeds to hide disturbing content from young users

Critics say Meta often leads to serious psychological harm Exposing young users to a variety of toxic and inappropriate content. eating disorders, depression and even commit suicide It’s all down to the company’s algorithms, and calls to reform them have grown louder of late and are clearly impossible to ignore.

social media giant declare On Tuesday, it introduced new changes to its content filtering system aimed at steering younger users away from harmful and disturbing content. The platform said it hopes the changes will give teenagers a “safe, age-appropriate experience” when visiting Facebook and Instagram.

What do these changes actually look like? Meta said it has put in place new guardrails for accounts that self-identify as under 18. The system will now limit young users’ ability to access certain types of content, such as posts about eating disorders and self-harm, even if they are shared by people they follow.according to a Recent blog posts Judging from the Meta, the company will…

…start removing this type of content, along with other types of age-inappropriate content, from teens’ experiences on Instagram and Facebook.Our goal is to no longer recommend this type of content to teens in places like Reels and Explore, and with these changes, we will no longer show this type of content to teens in Feed and Stories, even if it is from someone they follow shared.

The company said it will also make it harder for younger users to find disturbing content in the Search and Explore fields and will not show pornographic content to accounts under 16. If teens do search for disturbing content (such as suicide or self-harm), they will be directed to “expert resources for help.” All these changes are expected to take effect in the coming weeks.

Why is Meta doing all this now? Well, that might have something to do with the company’s current situation. be accused More than 40 state governments.this large-scale joint litigation Dozens of attorneys general filed a lawsuit in October accusing the social media giant of using “dopamine manipulation capabilities” to lure young users to its site and foster “addictive behaviors to boost corporate profits.” Meta now seems to be covering its own butt with a policy shift that should have been accomplished years ago but is too little, too late.

If Meta’s changes are better than nothing, it’s a little unclear how the platform plans to deal with teenagers who lie about their age when they sign up.we all know teenagers Pretend to be older than you actually are For many reasons, namely to obtain drugs and alcohol.Considering it’s much easier to lie about your age when joining an online platform than to obtain a fake ID, it’s unclear why Meta thinks younger users can’t outsmart them Less than ideal age verification system. Gizmodo reached out to Meta for more information and will update this story if the company responds.

In the past, Meta has made modest efforts to regulate who can view content on its platform, although you might say its content moderation process still a mess.company claim It has “developed more than 30 tools and resources to support teens and their parents, and we have spent more than a decade developing policies and technology to deal with content that violates our rules or may be deemed sensitive.”