Advertisers can no more target teens basis gender on Meta platforms

Meta has announced newer limitations on the way brands and advertisers can target teens. The company has announced that they are making changes to the options advertisers have to reach teens, as well as the information Meta uses to show ads to teens. 

“We recognise 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,” Meta blog post read.

Meta is also introducing more teen-specific controls and resources to help them understand how ads work and the reasons why they see certain ads on apps like Facebook and Instagram. “These changes reflect research, direct feedback from parents and child developmental experts, UN children’s rights principles and global regulation,” said Meta.

What is Meta changing?

Earlier the company had announced that they are removing the ability for advertisers to target teens based on their interests and activities. Now starting in February, Meta will remove the option for targeting advertising to teen users based on gender.

Furthermore, the apps will not use engagement information like the posts teens like or follow certain pages to influence the ads teens will be shown. “Age and location will be the only information about a teen that we’ll use to show them ads. Age and location help us continue to ensure teens see ads that are meant for their age and the products and services available where they live,” mentioned the blog post.

“Starting in March, teens will have more ways to manage the types of ads they see on Facebook and Instagram with Ad Topic Controls, expanding on what’s already available. Teens will be able to go to their Ad Preferences within Settings on both apps and choose the ‘See Less’ or ‘No Preference’ to further control the types of ads they see,” it added.

The company has added a new privacy page with more information for teens about the tools and privacy settings they can use on apps. They also have a ‘teen privacy centre’ which has now added resources to help teens understand and manage their privacy across different apps from Meta.

“Our Advertising Standards already prohibit ads about restricted topics — like alcohol, financial products and weight loss products and services — to be shown to people under 18 (and older in certain countries). But even when an ad complies with our policies, teens may want to see fewer ads like it. For example, if a teen wants to see fewer ads about a genre of a TV show or an upcoming sports season, they should be able to tell us that.”

“Teens can continue to choose to hide any or all ads 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,” the company explained.

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