Teen Accounts updates build upon broken safety standards, forcing parents and teens to shoulder the full burden of Meta’s harmful product despite public claims of safety and privacy 

Design It For Us co-chair Sebastian Mahal released the following statement:

“It is simply not enough to put the onus on parents or young people to make social media safe. In fact, recent unsealed court filings show that only 0.38% of Instagram’s Teen Accounts have actually enabled parental supervision. If Meta’s parental tools are scarcely applied, this latest update from Meta is futile. Real support for young people and parents alike comes from laws requiring safety-by-design and privacy-by-default, policies that Meta has fought against in Congress and in court for years. 

“And it’s hard to overlook the timing; as Meta’s leaders stand for trial in Los Angeles, the company is rolling out another headline-friendly “safety” announcement that reads more like reputation management than a meaningful change to their underlying business model.

“This “update” demonstrates that Instagram knows its products endanger kids and enable the mass proliferation of harmful content, yet they continue to pass the responsibility off on parents and users to keep us safe. In reality, most teens will never see this “support,” but we’re the ones who will pay the price.”

Design It For Us has led countless efforts to demand accountability from companies like Meta:

  • In April 2025, Design It For Us joined Parents Together and the Heat Initiative to host a rally at Meta’s headquarters in New York City. We delivered a petition of more than 10,000 signatures of young people and parents demanding meaningful accountability from Meta and Mark Zuckerberg.
  • Design It For Us partnered with Accountable Tech in May 2025 to release a test of the efficacy of Meta’s Teen Accounts’ protections. In the test, youth volunteers from the coalition created test accounts and recorded their experiences using Teen Accounts over the course of two weeks. Our test accounts found that Meta’s policies did not always work, including that:
  • On the 1-year anniversary of the rollout of Teen Accounts in September 2025, DIFU advocate Alia ElKattan stood alongside Meta whistleblowers and parents in a press conference to call out Meta’s persistent refusal to be transparent and accountable to its users. 

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About Design It For Us

Design It For Us is a youth-led coalition leveraging grassroots power to disrupt Big Tech’s harmful business models. The coalition is led by a team of people between the ages of 18 and 26 and supported by an array of youth-led organizations, staff, and advisors fighting for a better online world for everyone.