Meta will limit advertisements targeting teens on Facebook, Instagram

Meta has announced that it is bringing further updates to its ad system, including removing gender as an option for advertisers to reach users under 18 on Facebook and Instagram. Starting in February, advertisers will only be able to use age and location to reach teens, the company said in a blogpost on Tuesday.

Age and location will be the only information about a teen that the company will use to show them advertisements, which will make sure that teens see ads that are meant for their age and products and services available where they live.

Moreover, starting in March, users under 18 will have more ways to manage the types of advertisements they see on Facebook and Instagram with Ad Topic Controls.

As part of our ongoing work to keep our apps age-appropriate for teens, we’re:

✅Showing teens ads based only on their age and location
✅Offering more ways for teens to control the types of ads they see
✅Adding info on why teens see certain adshttps://t.co/bnHLqprcZX

— Meta Newsroom (@MetaNewsroom) January 10, 2023

Teens can also choose to hide any or all advertisements from a specific advertiser.

“The topics we already restrict in our policies will be defaulted to “See Less”, so that teens can’t choose to opt into content that may not be age-appropriate,” Meta said

“We’ve added a new privacy page with more information for teens about the tools and privacy settings they can use across our technologies,” it added.

For the unversed, Meta already prohibits ads about restricted topics – like alcohol, financial products and weight loss products and services for users under the age of 18 years.

As per the blogpost, “We’ve added a new privacy page with more information for teens about the tools and privacy settings they can use across our technologies, and our teen privacy center has additional resources to help teens understand and manage their privacy across our apps.”

–With inputs from IANS