Meta, Facebook and Instagram’s parent company, is finding more ways to protect teenagers from targeted adverts on its platforms.
At this point, you don’t need to take your kids shopping for them to ask for something. Your children’s devices (yes, the ones you bought) are portable little marketplaces. Advertisers can track you (and your kids) with stunning efficiency. Before you know it, you’re be shopping away. Meta may be able to help (the kids) (a little).
Going Meta with advertising
Starting in February this year, the company will remove the option to use gender as a target point for advertisements directed at people under the age of 18 on Facebook and Instagram. Advertisers will still be able create ads based on age and location.
“We recognize that teens aren’t necessarily as equipped as adults to make decisions about how their online data is used for advertising, particularly when it comes to showing them products available to purchase,” said Meta in a post this week.
“Age and location help us continue to ensure teens see ads that are meant for their age and products and services available where they live.”
Read More: Are your kids following age restrictions for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok and others?
Meta collects data on its user’s online activity, including information on in-app behaviour. The info collected includes data on the pages that a particular user follows and the content they like or interact with. This is used to target ads at the most likely buyers.
The new restrictions by the platform will limit advertisers from targeting teens based on in-app activity on Facebook and Instagram. The restriction on targeted ads for teenagers is in addition to those implemented by the company last year. In 2021, Meta made all accounts to people under the age of 16 private by default for safety reasons.
Read More: Examining the link between well-being and the age a child first receives a cellphone
Meta will also add more tools to Facebook and Instagram to give teenagers increased control over the type of advertisements they prefer seeing and those that they’d rather not see.
“Teens will be able to go to their Ad Preferences within Settings on both apps, and choose See Less or No Preference to further control the types of ads they see.”
Meta already restricts alcohol, weight loss, and financial product advertisements to users under the age of 18.
Source: Meta