Teens will no longer receive gender-based ads
(New York) Meta, the parent company of social networks Instagram and Facebook regularly accused of harming the mental health of young audiences, has decided to no longer allow advertisers to target teenagers based on their gender.
Starting in February, groups wishing to advertise to minors on these platforms will only have access to their age and location, to ensure that the content of the ads is appropriate and useful, Meta said Tuesday in a message on its website.
The company led by Mark Zuckerberg, which no longer allowed advertisers since the summer of 2021 to know the history of teenagers on other sites, has also decided to extend this limitation to its own platforms.
This amounts to "removing the ability for advertisers to target teens based on their interests and activities," Meta says.
The group also plans to make it easier to let under-18s indicate when they want to receive fewer ads on certain topics,
such as a specific genre of TV series or sport.
US elected officials and child protection associations accuse applications particularly popular among young people such as Instagram but also Snapchat, YouTube or TikTok, to have harmful effects on its youngest users.
The accusations took on a new dimension when, in the fall of 2021, former Facebook employee Frances Haugen leaked internal documents showing that the platform's executives were aware of certain risks to minors.
Companies have since tried to give guarantees on the protection of teenagers.
Insufficient efforts according to some: public school officials in Seattle, in the United States, filed a complaint Friday against several social networks accusing them of "harming" the mental health of minors.
"The increase in suicides, suicide attempts and mental health-related emergency room visits is no coincidence. [...] This crisis was already worsening before the pandemic and research has identified social media as playing a major role in the emergence of mental health problems among young people," they write in their complaint.
Starting in February, groups wishing to advertise to minors on these platforms will only have access to their age and location, to ensure that the content of the ads is appropriate and useful, Meta said Tuesday in a message on its website.
The company led by Mark Zuckerberg, which no longer allowed advertisers since the summer of 2021 to know the history of teenagers on other sites, has also decided to extend this limitation to its own platforms.
This amounts to "removing the ability for advertisers to target teens based on their interests and activities," Meta says.
The group also plans to make it easier to let under-18s indicate when they want to receive fewer ads on certain topics,
such as a specific genre of TV series or sport.
US elected officials and child protection associations accuse applications particularly popular among young people such as Instagram but also Snapchat, YouTube or TikTok, to have harmful effects on its youngest users.
The accusations took on a new dimension when, in the fall of 2021, former Facebook employee Frances Haugen leaked internal documents showing that the platform's executives were aware of certain risks to minors.
Companies have since tried to give guarantees on the protection of teenagers.
Insufficient efforts according to some: public school officials in Seattle, in the United States, filed a complaint Friday against several social networks accusing them of "harming" the mental health of minors.
"The increase in suicides, suicide attempts and mental health-related emergency room visits is no coincidence. [...] This crisis was already worsening before the pandemic and research has identified social media as playing a major role in the emergence of mental health problems among young people," they write in their complaint.
PRESS FRANCE AGENCY
Instagram and Facebook | Teens will no longer receive gender-based ads | The Press (lapresse.ca)
Instagram and Facebook | Teens will no longer receive gender-based ads | The Press (lapresse.ca)
