69ý

Classroom Technology

Under Fire From Lawsuits, Meta Looks to Make It Harder for Teens to See Harmful Content

By Alyson Klein — January 09, 2024 4 min read
Girl using smartphone with notifications of social media icons
  • Save to favorites
  • Print
Email Copy URL

Meta, the social media giant behind Instagram and Facebook, is making it harder for teenagers to view content on its platforms that is related to self-harm, suicide, nudity, or eating disorders, even if it’s posted by someone they follow.

The changes—announced Jan. 9—come as the company faces multiple lawsuits from states and school districts claiming that Meta knowingly ignored the negative impact of its platforms on children’s mental health.

Educators have demanded that Meta and other companies do more to mitigate the damage they believe Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms have done to students’ emotional well-being—or at the very least, acknowledge that their apps have contributed to teens’ mental health problems.

Meta did not address those concerns directly. But in explaining the changes, the company said it regularly “consults with experts in adolescent development, psychology, and mental health to help make our platforms safe and age-appropriate for young people,” according to a .

In the past, teens could read posts from friends and even strangers contemplating suicide or threatening self-harm. Now, if someone posts about those topics, anyone under 18 who follows them would not see the content, Meta explained.

While posts about mental health “can help destigmatize these issues, it’s a complex topic and isn’t necessarily suitable for all young people,” Meta explained.

‘Merely a Band-Aid to distract from a huge underlying problem’

The changes won’t do nearly enough to help protect students from potentially damaging posts, said James Steyer, the founder and CEO of Common Sense, a nonprofit advocacy and research organization that explores the impact of technology on youth.

“These so-called ‘protections’ are nothing but a short-term fix, merely a Band-Aid to distract from a huge underlying problem that social media apps like Instagram are not a safe place for children and teens,” he says in a statement.

The changes are “an awesome first step” but leave far too many potential problems unaddressed, said Beth Houf, the principal of Capital City High School in Jefferson City, Mo., and a former National Association of Secondary 69ý Principals Principal of the Year.

While it is positive that it will be harder for students to be exposed to posts about issues like self-harm, “there’s so many other pieces of content that are just as harmful,” Houf said, including Instagram pages used to spread unfounded, anonymous gossip.

“69ý just roast each other,” she said. Houf also worries that students don’t have to do much to see whatever content they want—they can always lie about their age.

What’s more, Houf has alerted Meta to posts that she thinks are harmful—hacked accounts, hate speech, sexual content, students’ personal information leaked online. But the company has been slow to respond, she said.

Meta did not respond to a request for comment before deadline.

Meta will also default anyone under the age of 18 to its most restrictive settings for content control, making it more difficult for teens to encounter “sensitive” posts, and regularly remind teens to update their privacy settings. The changes will be fully implemented on Facebook and Instagram over the “coming months,” Meta said.

Steyer pointed to Meta’s decision to continue “putting the onus on teens to navigate their own privacy” as irresponsible.

“They state that content will be blocked if it ‘breaks their rules’ but how can the public possibly trust them to establish adequate rules when they’ve broken our trust and hurt our kids time and time again?” Steyer says in his statement.

‘Teenagers feel bad when they use Instagram but can’t stop’

Recently, states and school districts have brought their concerns about social media to a new arena: the courts.

Last fall, 33 states banded together to sue Meta, saying it is consciously harming children’s mental health, including by creating visual filters it knows can cause body dysmorphia. An additional eight states, plus the District of Columbia, are pursuing lawsuits in their own states over similar issues.

Also last year, several school districts—iԳܻ徱Բ Seattle, Arizona’s Mesa Public 69ý, and New Jersey’s Irvington Public 69ý—took the extraordinary step of suing Meta and other social media companies over the harm their products allegedly cause.

Experts say their cases may be bolstered by reports that Meta willfully ignored its own research on the harm its platforms caused.

Thousands of pages of documents released in 2021 by a whistleblower show Meta conducted extensive research on the negative impact of its platforms on children’s mental health and the spread of false information but failed to act on any of those findings.

The company ignored the information because acting would have been against its business interests, Frances Haugen, the whistleblower, a former Facebook product manager, said in testifying before Congress in October of that year.

“Facebook understands that if they want to continue to grow, they have to find new users, they have to make sure that that next generation is just as engaged on Instagram as the current one,” Haugen told members of Congress. “And the way they’ll do that is by making sure that children establish habits before they have good self-regulation … It’s just like cigarettes. [Teenagers] say they feel bad when they use Instagram but can’t stop.”

Events

School & District Management Webinar Crafting Outcomes-Based Contracts That Work for Everyone
Discover the power of outcomes-based contracts and how they can drive student achievement.
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
School & District Management Webinar
Harnessing AI to Address Chronic Absenteeism in 69ý
Learn how AI can help your district improve student attendance and boost academic outcomes.
Content provided by 
School & District Management Webinar EdMarketer Quick Hit: What’s Trending among K-12 Leaders?
What issues are keeping K-12 leaders up at night? Join us for EdMarketer Quick Hit: What’s Trending among K-12 Leaders?

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.

Read Next

Classroom Technology Opinion Has Technology Been Bad for 69ý and Learning?
Education technology is supposed to build knowledge. We need to wrestle with the possibility that it might not.
7 min read
The United States Capitol building as a bookcase filled with red, white, and blue policy books in a Washington DC landscape.
Luca D'Urbino for Education Week
Classroom Technology Opinion Why School Cellphone Bans Are a Bad Idea
We cannot ignore the powerful relationship between students and their phones—and what they mean for equity in our most challenged schools.
Brandon Cardet-Hernandez
4 min read
Trendy halftone collage. Hand holding and using cell phone.
Natalya Kosarevich/iStock
Classroom Technology From Our Research Center How Strict Are School Cellphone Policies?
New survey data show that schools are trying a variety of approaches to curb students’ cellphone use.
2 min read
Young student using on smartphone in classroom
Leonardo Patrizi/iStock/Getty
Classroom Technology From Our Research Center How 69ý Are Dodging Cellphone Restrictions
69ý’ efforts to restrict cellphone use have set up a battle of wits between teachers and students.
1 min read
A ninth grader places her cellphone in to a phone holder as she enters class at Delta High School, Friday, Feb. 23, 2024, in Delta, Utah. At the rural Utah school, there is a strict policy requiring students to check their phones at the door when entering every class. Each classroom has a cellphone storage unit that looks like an over-the-door shoe bag with three dozen smartphone-sized slots.
A 9th grader places her cellphone into a holder as she enters class at Delta High School in Delta, Utah, in February. The rural school has a strict policy requiring students to check their phones at the door when entering every class.
Rick Bowmer/AP