Meta to remove gender as a targeting option for teens in ads

Meta advertising gets an update on continuing to create age-appropriate ad experiences for teens.

Meta announced a slate of tools, controls, and updates at the first Summit on Youth Safety and Well-Being held with the objective of creating and promoting age-appropriate experiences for teens using Meta-owned apps.

The tools and updated ad experiences have been created in collaboration with safety advocates, mental health experts, educators, think tank researchers, policy writers and parents. Along with updates to the online experience of teens, additional resources for parents to safeguard their children's social media usage and time spent have also been rolled out.

The tools, features, and resources have been designed to cater concerns regarding mental well-being, facilitation of conversations between parents and kids on social media usage, age assurance and verification, and ad experiences that are suitable for the age parameter. Here is a summary of all the announcements:

Global Regulation

Meta reckons that global policymakers are required to set standardized policies that facilitate consistent regulation across regions for teenagers spending time on the constantly evolving digital platforms.

Nick Clegg, President - Global Affairs, Meta mentioned, "I think everybody has a role… social media companies have a role, families have a role, parents have a role, governments have a role, regulators have a role. This is a space where I think it is totally legitimate and normal for regulators to act".

Also Read: Meta to remove gender as a targeting option for teens in ads

Tools Supporting Online Experiences For Teens

• Parental controls that help parents and teens navigate their time online together
• Age verification technology to help age-gate appropriate experiences
• Default private settings for teens
• Removing more content that violates our policies and making potentially sensitive content more difficult to find
• Tools to avoid unwanted interactions
• Tools for teens to spend more meaningful time online

Age-Gated Ad-Experiences

For the development of age-appropriate ad experiences Meta has made a few updates to ad targeting options, and preferences, along with few more updates:

• Teens’ previous engagements across apps, such as the Instagram posts and Facebook pages they’ve liked, will not inform what ads they see
• Beginning in February, advertisers will only be able to use age and location to reach teens; gender as a targeting option has been removed
• Teens will also be able to inform platforms about the types of ads they would rather not see, and learn more about how ads work on the apps