Meta’s Instagram is borrowing a page from Hollywood’s content-ratings playbook.
The popular photo and video app said it is revamping Instagram’s Teen Accounts to be “guided” by the Motion Picture Association’s PG-13 movie rating. What that means: Users of teen accounts will be restricted to seeing content that contains the level of nudity, sexual expression, profanity, drug use, violence and other adult-oriented themes that they they would expect to see in a PG-13 movie.
Instagram launched Teen Accounts in September 2024. They’re available to teens 13-17, who can set up an account that is supervised by a parent (who must be over 18 years old).
The MPA’s PG-13 rating, introduced in 1984, carries this advisory: “Parents Strongly Cautioned. Some Material May Be Inappropriate For Children Under 13.” Recent and upcoming movies that carry the PG-13 rating include “Tron: Ares,” “Superman,” “The Fantastic Four: First Steps,” “F1: The Movie,” “Jurassic World: Rebirth” and “Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere.”
Instagram explained the rationale behind the update in a blog post Tuesday. “While Teen Accounts already have built-in protections, we understand that inappropriate content remains a top concern for parents — and that our existing content settings can feel confusing. We wanted to more closely align with an external standard parents are more familiar with, to provide clarity and peace of mind that when their teen is on Instagram, they’re seeing content similar to what they’d see in a PG-13 movie by default.”
According to Instagram, teens who have supervised accounts will be automatically placed in the updated “PG-13” experience and can’t opt-out without a parent’s permission. The change will apply across Instagram, including Feed, Stories, comments, recommendations and search results. It will also apply to entire accounts so teens won’t be able to follow or interact with accounts that regularly share content designated as for those 18 and older. Instagram is also introducing a new, stricter content setting for parents “who want a more restrictive experience for their teen.”
Instagram’s Teen Accounts have built-in restrictions on who can contact teens, what content they see, and how long they can spend using the app. According to Instagram, since Teen Accounts launched just over a year ago, 97% of teens 13-15 have kept their default restrictions on and 94% of parents surveyed say Teen Accounts are helpful to them.
For context, here is the official description of MPA’s PG-13 rating: “A PG-13 rating is a sterner warning [than PG] by the Rating Board to parents to determine whether their children under age 13 should view the motion picture, as some material might not be suited for them. A PG-13 motion picture may go beyond the PG rating in theme, violence, nudity, sensuality, language, adult activities or other elements, but does not reach the restricted R category. The theme of the motion picture by itself will not result in a rating greater than PG-13, although depictions of activities related to a mature theme may result in a restricted rating for the motion picture.”
The description continues, “Any drug use will initially require at least a PG-13 rating. More than brief nudity will require at least a PG-13 rating, but such nudity in a PG-13 rated motion picture generally will not be sexually oriented. There may be depictions of violence in a PG-13 movie, but generally not both realistic and extreme or persistent violence. A motion picture’s single use of one of the harsher sexually-derived words, though only as an expletive, initially requires at least a PG-13 rating. More than one such expletive requires an R rating, as must even one of those words used in a sexual context.”
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