Instagram, Facebook enforce tougher restrictions — Who will be hit the most?

Meta has decided that messages from strangers on Facebook and Instagram will no longer be sent to teenagers under the age of 18.

As part of a safety improvement, the social media giant will automatically ban messages from users they do not follow or have any connection to, according to Daily Mail.

They stated that the modification was a part of their continuous effort to offer "age-appropriate experiences for teens" across all of their apps.

No one will be able to Direct Message (DM) a teenager on Instagram or Facebook Messenger who does not follow them as a result of the move, which expands on an existing Meta policy that prohibits adults from messaging juveniles who do not follow them.

Meta said in a blog post: "Under this new default setting, teens can only be messaged or added to group chats by people they already follow or are connected to, helping teens and their parents feel even more confident that they won't hear from people they don't know in their DMs."

They added: "This default setting will apply to all teens under the age of 16 (or under 18 in certain countries). Those already on Instagram will see a notification at the top of their feed letting them know we're making these changes to their message settings."

"We're also making these changes to teens' default settings on Messenger, where under-16s (or under 18 in certain countries) will only receive messages from Facebook friends, or people they're connected to through phone contacts, for example."