Meta’s Teen Accounts Update Merely Papers Over the Cracks

New protections don’t fix the design harms at the center of Meta’s courtroom losses

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

“Meta’s latest Teen Accounts update does nothing more than attempt to distract from the flaws of its purported safety protections for young people. The company has spent years touting its teen safety protections, while organizations, including Design It For Us, have conducted independent research that shows Teen Accounts do not work as promised. Now, as Meta is feeling the heat from its mounting legal losses, it is trying to deflect attention from its exploitative design, lack of safety protections, and privacy concerns that were on full display in courts across the nation.”

“Meta’s latest data still fails to prove that its safety protections actually deliver on their promises. Comparing Teen Accounts to an unnamed competitor’s safety protections enables Meta to report on their product in a vacuum, and is an insufficient approach to demonstrating Teen Accounts’ efficacy.”

“Our methodology, which created model teen test accounts to simulate a baseline experience on Instagram Teen Accounts, found that Meta’s sensitive content controls failed to prevent content that should not have been recommended to our model test accounts. Regulation is needed to combat Meta’s harmful business model that prioritizes engagement over young people’s safety.”

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 the fact that 5 out of 5 of our test Teen Accounts were algorithmically recommended sensitive content, despite Meta’s default sensitive content controls being enabled. 
  • 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.