Meta hit with cease-and-desist letter over use of ‘PG-13 ratings’ for Instagram content

A lawyer on behalf of the MPA sent Meta Platforms a cease-and-desist letter asking the tech giant to “immediately and permanently disassociate its Teen Accounts and AI tools from the MPA’s rating system.”

Instagram had announced last month that its teen accounts will be will be restricted to seeing PG-13 content by default. The Motion Picture Association, which runs the film rating system that was established nearly 60 years ago, said at the time that it was not contacted by Meta prior to its announcement.

The MPA says Meta’s claims claims that its Teen Accounts will be “guided by” PG-13 ratings and that its Teen Account content settings are “generally aligned with movie ratings for ages 13+” are “false and highly misleading.” The association’s movie ratings, which range from G to NC-17, are done by parents who watch entire movies and evaluate them to come up with a rating.

“Meta’s attempts to restrict teen content literally cannot be ‘guided by’ or ‘aligned with’ the MPA’s PG-13 movie rating because Meta does not follow this curated process,” the association’s letter says. “Instead, Meta’s content restrictions appear to rely heavily on artificial intelligence or other automated technology measures.”

In a statement, Meta said it updated its teen content policies to be “closer to PG-13 movie standards— which parents already know” so parents can better understand what their teens see on Instagram.

“We know social media isn’t the same as movies, but we made this change to support parents, and we hope to work with the MPA to continue bringing families this clarity,” the company said. Meta added that its intent was never to suggest that it partnered with the MPA or that the material on Instagram had been rated by the movie association.