Meta, facing regulatory pressure, to restrict teenage access to harmful content

Meta will automatically bar teenagers’ Instagram and Facebook accounts from viewing content promoting self-harm or explicit content, a change preemptively made in response to a push from states and federal lawmakers to impose new regulations on the tech giant.

The social media company announced Tuesday that it plans to place accounts of under-18 users under the most restrictive content settings in the next few weeks, a policy meant to protect them from seeing content that many believe is damaging to teenagers.