Meta announced Thursday that it is rolling out its so-called “teen accounts” with additional protections for adolescent Facebook and Messenger users worldwide, months after introducing them in major English-speaking countries.
The company explained in a blog post: “We’ve placed hundreds of millions of teens in Teen Accounts across Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger, and now we’re expanding them to teens around the world on Facebook and Messenger.”
Meta’s teen accounts, designed for users aged 13 to 17, come with stronger security settings, content restrictions, and parental controls. They were first introduced on Instagram last year before being extended in April to Facebook and Messenger in the US, Canada, Australia, and Britain.
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The restrictions, according to Meta, are “designed to address parents’ top concerns with automatic protections to limit who their teens are talking to online and the content they’re seeing, and ensure their time is well spent.” Importantly, the limits cannot be removed without parental consent for users under 16.
The company has emphasized that these safety measures are part of its wider effort to respond to growing worries about social media’s impact on younger users.
In recent years, parents, regulators, and advocacy groups have raised concerns about teens’ heavy screen time, exposure to harmful content, and lack of effective moderation on some platforms.
With this global expansion, Meta aims to strengthen safeguards and reassure parents that its platforms are adapting to protect adolescents in a digital environment that continues to evolve.