Following a slew of allegations surrounding grown men, sliding into the DM of teen girls, Meta has announced stricter message settings to protect minors.

This now means underaged users who are below 16 and in some regions 18, will no longer receive messages from strangers or be added to group chats by default on both Facebook and Instagram

Previously, users over 18 were restricted from sending direct messages to teens who do not follow them – now, any stranger even if it’s a teen, will not be able to send those underaged direct messages via IG.

Simply put, teens will only receive messages from people they know or follow

However, for Facebook, teens will only be able to receive messages from their friends or persons in their contact.

Additionally, teens will receive an alert notification at the top of their feed.

Meta says this move was taken to provide a sense of security for both teenagers and parents.

Also, they are expanding their parental supervision tools, where parents can now block their teens from making setting and security changes to their accounts. Plus parents will now have the power to control messages sent to their child or children’s account.