Meta strengthens the protection of adolescents on its networks

The launch of the operation took place this Tuesday, June 27, at the premises of Meta (Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp) in Paris. Called Campus des parents, the device aims to educate and raise awareness among parents of online protection tools for adolescents. “Initiatives to educate and inform users about digital are concentrated around the younger generations. However, they already understand the codes of digital”notes Laurent Solly, the vice-president of Southern Europe of Meta. “That’s why you have to turn to the parents.” In its approach, the company has relied on online child protection ociations (e-Enfance, Digital Generation), parent federations such as the ociation de parents d’enseignement pupils libre, or even the Secretary of State for Children, Charlotte Caubel.

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First step on July 7 – National Day of Connected Parents – with the distribution of educational videos for families. From September, monthly webinars will be organized free of charge by the Génération Numérique ociation. In the program : “Awareness videos on the rules of life on the Internet, advice for using the security features of the different applications or courses on personal data”explains Cyril di Palma, general delegate of the Digital Generation ociation.

Parental control on Messenger

In parallel with this training offer, Facebook’s parent company is rolling out a range of new features to secure teenagers’ profiles. Meta will thus extend to Messenger the parental supervision already present on Instagram since spring 2022. Concretely, parents or guardians will be able to prohibit the use of the social network during certain time slots, for example, at night or during lessons, know the people followed by the teenager and know who is subscribed to his account. Meta is also considering limiting the sending of private messages to Internet users who are not subscribed to the sender’s account. “Before they can message someone who doesn’t follow them, users now need to send an invite for permission to connect”specifies the Californian company.

These features will be rolled out gradually over the coming weeks, starting with English-speaking countries, and eventually will be available worldwide.

Teens are free to opt in or out of parental controls on Messenger or Instagram. Meta

Limit the time of use

Another key measure is the control of time spent on Meta applications. The “Take a break” tool to encourage the youngest to disconnect when they spend more than 20 minutes on one of the group’s social networks or when they use it at night. More broadly, Instagram will offer a “Silent” mode to all of its users to help them focus on other tasks. Once enabled, Instagram will no longer send notifications and will let contacts know via status change and auto-reply to private messages that the user does not want to be disturbed.

So many initiatives that echo the controversies around the question of the protection of adolescents at Meta. Last October, the former employee of the group Frances Haugen violently criticized the laxity of the group on this aspect. Document in support, the whistleblower revealed that the Meta group knew that Instagram was “toxic for teenage girlswithout doing anything to remedy it.