Meta is making adjustments to how its apps interact with both advertising and young users. According to new rules, ads on Instagram and Facebook can no longer rely on nearly as much personal data to target teens with ads. Users under the age of 18 will also now be further empowered with more choices over which ads they do see, and why.

Meta will begin eliminating the ability to target advertisements to teen users based on gender starting next month. The company will also end advertisers' ability to target personalized ads to under-18 users based on their in-app activity, including who they follow on Instagram and what Facebook pages they like.

After the updates, targeted ads on such apps will only rely on age and location to determine the relevance to target. Meta has argued that location is required to establish what products and services exist in the region of a user.

In two months, Facebook and Instagram also will roll out new controls for teen users (no kids under age 13 are allowed on those apps–technically). Teens will be able to "see less" of a given topic, which will shape which ads the platform will serve them.

These changes follow Meta's recent efforts in implementing some form of privacy protections for the company's young users after it has launched them. For example, Instagram blocked its advertisers in 2021 from making their ads to teens via interest or other online activities besides those on the app.

The Irish Data Protection Commission had an investigation of two years about how Instagram treated the user accounts of children aged 13 to 17. Included in those practices was the making of accounts public by default and allowing minors who had opted into business accounts to share their phone numbers and other contact information.

Meta was fined last fall about $400 million for those offenses. It said at the time that it intended to appeal and has been critical of the Irish regulator for "punishing" the company for its pre-existing policies. Those may have been in place only for as long as was necessary while regulation loomed, although. Kids on Instagram only began being offered the option of private accounts-or being opted into them-until many months into 2021.

Clearly, meta's incremental changes don't go so far as to turn off the ads altogether for teens- a solution that wouldn't be unreasonable given the risks involved. The company decision to stay the course of its youngest users being valuable enough from an advertising perspective for Meta to risk future regulatory wrangling rather than going cold turkey.