Teens don't give a damn about Facebook's new measures
With its newly announced new measures, Meta explains that it wants to improve the privacy protection of teenagers on Facebook and Instagram. A laudable proposal, but which probably comes a little late, since young people are less and less interested in these platforms.
The social networks of yesterday are no longer really those of today, but Meta does not seem to be aware. However, it is a fact: multiple studies prove that Facebook is no longer really popular among teenagers. A study conducted by Pew Research Center last August showed that while 71% of young people aged 13 to 17 actively used Facebook in 2014, they were only 32% in 2022. Instagram is holding up, since 62% of teenagers have an account there. Only, it is above all TikTok which, last summer, presented itself as the master in this category, with 67% of young people surveyed being active there.
Therefore, we can say that the recent announcement of Meta may be a little late. Mark Zuckerberg's platform has just announced its intention to strengthen the protection of the privacy of young users.
Meta wants to protect teens from the dangers of the Internet
In practice, owners of a Facebook or Instagram account under the age of 16, or under the age of 18 in certain countries, will receive a notification encouraging them to opt for an automatic configuration of their account aimed at protecting them from various threat. Essentially, this general suggestion will be to switch the Facebook account to " private ", so that only those close to the teenager can access their publications.
The fact is that many young people still tend to post in public, which increases the chances of attracting bad people, especially sexual predators. When receiving messages from strangers, teenagers will also be encouraged to block the accounts concerned, but also to report them to the platform.
Meta does not intend to stop there. Indeed, the company is currently working on an algorithm capable of automatically detecting suspicious messages, with a view to purely and simply preventing teenagers from responding to them by removing the send message button.
