Beginning in February, the social media giant said
advertisers, the source of the company's massive revenues, would only be able
to use age and location when targeting ads at teens globally.
In another break with practice, a teen's previous activity
on Meta-owned apps will no longer inform the ads they see, the company said.
In a blog post, Meta said that the changes came because it
recognizes "that teens aren't necessarily as equipped as adults to make
decisions about how their online data is used for advertising."
Meta said that the changes reflected feedback from parents
and experts and would comply with new rules in several countries on content
geared at young people.
The company formerly known as Facebook is facing increasing
pressure and fines to curb its practice of delivering narrowly targeted ads to
its users, a practice that brings in billions of dollars in revenue from
advertisers every year.
After a long legal tussle, the Silicon Valley titan was
handed a Euro 390 million fine last week as part of a years-long tussle with
the European Union over advertising.
More worryingly for the firm founded by Mark Zuckerberg,
European regulators also rejected the legal basis Meta used to justify
gathering users' personal data for use in targeted advertising.
Google and Apple have also faced investigations and fines by
regulators for breaching privacy laws through targeted ads.
In the US, Meta and other social media giants have mostly
faced scrutiny from local authorities, with nationwide laws blocked due to
intense lobbying by tech giants and a politically divided Congress in
Washington.
The public school district in the US city of Seattle last
week filed a lawsuit against tech giants, including Meta, for allegedly causing
mental harm, depression, and anxiety among students.
Public school officials said they are "holding social
media companies accountable for the harm they have wreaked on the social,
emotional, and mental health" of teenage students.
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