Meta and the MPA have reached a compromise to substantially limit Instagram’s references to the PG-13 rating system for its teen accounts — but it’s not completely going away.
Starting April 15, a new disclaimer will explain the social media protections to young users and their parents, while also reiterating that the Motion Picture Association did not technically provide said guidelines to the tech company.
“There are lots of differences between social media and movies. We didn’t work with the MPA when updating our content settings, and they’re not rating any content on Instagram, and they’re not endorsing or approving our content settings in any way. Rather, we drew inspiration from the MPA’s public guidelines, which are already familiar to parents,” the disclaimer will read. “Our content moderation systems are not the same as a movie ratings board, so the experience may not be exactly the same.”
“Today’s agreement clearly distinguishes the MPA’s film ratings from Instagram’s Teen Account content moderation tools,” said Charles Rivkin, chairman and CEO of the MPA, in a Tuesday statement. “While we welcome efforts to protect kids from content that may not be appropriate for them, this agreement helps ensure that parents do not conflate the two systems – which operate in very different contexts. The MPA is proud of the trust we have built with parents for nearly sixty years with our film rating system, and we will continue to do everything we can to protect that trust.”
“We’re pleased to have reached an agreement with the MPA. By taking inspiration from a framework families know, our goal was to help parents better understand our teen content policies. We rigorously reviewed those policies against 13+ movie ratings criteria and parent feedback, updated them, and applied them to Teen Accounts by default,” a Meta spokesperson added. “While that’s not changing, we’ve taken the MPA’s feedback on how we talk about that work. We’ll keep working to support parents and provide age-appropriate experiences for teens.”
Instagram first announced its film-themed, teenage content restrictions in October, with the MPA immediately voicing their concern. The cinema body then sent a cease-and-desist letter in November.
Though users aged 13-18 can opt out of the settings with a parent’s permission, the update initially made it so teenagers could not follow age-inappropriate accounts, search for terms such as “suicide, self-harm and eating disorders,” open questionable links via DM or receive improper responses from AI.
