Meta Release Notes

Parental controls for teens

As teens grow up, so does the way they communicate. Parents have told us they want to be there to guide them without reading over their shoulder.

Today we're introducing parental controls for teens - a set of flexible, optional tools that parents and teens can set up together to help families choose the WhatsApp experience that's right for them.

Parents will be able to choose the right privacy settings for their teen, like who can see their profile photo or add them to groups. If a teen wants to relax any of those settings, they'll need their parent's approval via a parent-set PIN.

To stay on top of who their teen is connecting with, parents are notified when their teen joins or leaves a group, or when a group their teen is in grows meaningfully in size. Parents will be able to choose how their teen can use Channels, whose Status updates they can see, and who can see theirs. Parents can also now decide on the Meta AI experience that's right for their teen, which includes choosing between the default 13+ setting and a stricter 'Limited Content' option.

This is just the start. We're building these controls step by step, based on what families tell us they need. All of these controls are being designed to support open conversations about how to use WhatsApp between parents and teens, while keeping everyone's personal messages private.

They're straightforward to set up, with a single PIN and clear alerts to keep parents in the loop. And because every family is different, parental controls for teens are entirely optional. Parents choose how much support their teen needs, and can adjust or switch the controls off at any time. Even with controls turned on, your teen's personal messages and calls stay private and protected by end-to-end encryption. No one outside of the chat, not even WhatsApp, can see or hear them.

To learn more about setting up parental controls for teens and other ways for parents to support their family's experience on WhatsApp, visit our Help Center.

Takeaways

• Today, we’re expanding our School Partnership Program (SPP) to give verified school partners two new features, Channels and Notes, that help students and parents stay informed.
• We launched the School Partnership Program in partnership with ISTE and ASCD to help protect teens from potential safety issues like online bullying.
• We’re also introducing new features for high school students that pass a third-party verification process in the US: a school banner on their profile, a Clubs & Teams directory, School Stories, and Notes.

At Meta, we want the same thing as parents and educators: to ensure teens have safe, age-appropriate experiences online, and that the time teens spend on our apps is meaningful. That’s why we introduced Teen Accounts for Instagram, Facebook, Messenger, and Threads, and why we recently announced an agreement with 52 bipartisan state Attorneys General across the US that will further support teens and parents with new restrictions.

Last year, we launched the School Partnership Program in partnership with the International Society for Technology in Education and the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ISTE+ASCD) to help protect teens from safety issues like online bullying. This program makes it easier for educators to report potential teen safety issues directly to us, and we’re proud to share that we’ve partnered with nearly 17,000 schools so far.

Following feedback from school administrators, educators, and parents about how difficult it is to keep students informed about what’s happening across their school communities, we’re creating a new, centralized hub for school-related accounts. This will make it easier for schools to reach students, and for students to stay safe and informed on Instagram.

Now, schools that sign up to become school partners on Instagram will have easy access to:

• Channels: Schools can share quick updates to followers, including parents and the wider community. Only school administrators can post.
• School Stories and Notes: These give school-related accounts the ability to post stories and notes visible to all verified students. School administrators can monitor and remove these Stories and Notes.
• Prioritized reporting: Reports submitted by school partners that may violate Instagram’s Community Standards will be prioritized for review. Schools will also receive status updates on the reports and notifications as soon as Instagram takes action on the report.
• Educational resources: Instagram will provide resources that help support educators, parents, guardians, and students navigate Instagram safely.

Verified students at schools participating in the School Partnership Program will have the ability to access new features we’re announcing today, including:

• Clubs and Teams: School administrators, educators, and students will have the ability to add clubs and teams within their participating school, for example, the “Central High School Mathletes” as a centralized hub for communicating upcoming events and information.
• School Stories and Notes: Students will be able to view announcements, game results, and event reminders happening at their schools. Only club and team account admins and School Partnership Program admins can post.
• Student Banner and Directory: To help stay connected to classmates, students can see a directory of other students at their school, or make a school banner. This is only visible to other students and teen followers they follow back.

We don’t want social media to be a distraction from school. These features are built to support educators and help teens to stay informed outside of classroom hours. That’s why Teen Accounts give parents easy ways to block their teens from using Instagram during school hours.

How We’re Building Safety into These New Features

Keeping teens safe online is paramount and we want to assure educators and parents that we’re building these features with the proper protections in place so teens can explore their interests and express their creativity in a safe, age-appropriate space.

Middle and high schools in the US can sign up for the School Partnership Program by selecting ‘Account type and tools’ or ‘Business tools and controls.’ See full step by step instructions here. Schools can also visit about.instagram.com/community/educators to learn more.

We’ve partnered with third-party validator UNiDAYS to verify high school students before they can join their verified school community. If they’re not verified, they won’t have access to these features.

Clubs and teams posts are intended to be a centralized information hub for school communities. School administrators and educators at participating schools can also remove Club and Team accounts, Stories, and Notes.

Through our Family Center, parents are able to get insights into their teen’s school participation, including notifications if their teen leaves or joins a school.

We look forward to continuing to partner with schools to further support youth safety.

Forum is a purpose-built app we’re exploring for the people who want to go deeper on Facebook Groups.

Synced with your groups on Facebook, Forum brings them together in one place so you can see what’s new and jump into the conversations you care about. It also introduces new tools for the admins who bring these communities to life, and we’ll be sharing more on how we’re building for admins in the coming weeks.

We started testing Forum in May, and today we’re introducing new features that make it even easier to tap into firsthand experience from people in your communities.

Forum is available to download in the US on iOS and Android — just log in with your Facebook account to find your groups and discover new ones.

A Fresh Take On Group Member Recognition

We’re testing a new role to recognize top community voices in groups. This replaces our previous contributor badges and group expert role, and reflects the quality of a member’s contributions and the value they bring to their community.

The role is earned through contributions that genuinely help a community, such as answering questions, sharing firsthand experiences, offering practical tips and recommendations, and starting conversations that bring people together. The role comes with a new badge and new benefits, including posts that publish faster. All posts are subject to our Community Standards.

Admins know their communities best, and can spot the members making these contributions and grant the role directly — we’ll also nominate members to help admins identify top voices in their group. Members are notified when they receive the role and can remove themselves at any time.

The new role is starting to test on Forum in the US and on Facebook globally.

Find Answers From Real People

On Forum, Ask helps you find what people are saying in Facebook groups, using AI to highlight existing group posts and comments so you can easily get answers grounded in real experience. It shows you conversations from groups you’re already in, plus public groups you haven’t joined yet, helping you discover new communities you might be interested in. You can jump straight from Ask into a group discussion.

Today we’re testing two new ways Ask can help you find out what real people are saying:

• Compare your options: When you’re weighing choices, Ask pulls together recommendations, whether you’re picking a running shoe, choosing a gift, or deciding what to read next.
• Pick up where you left off: The Ask home page now suggests new questions based on your recent searches, so you can keep exploring.

Your Interests, All In One Place

On Forum, we’re testing a new way to explore your interests. You may start to see topic labels on posts, like Solo Travel or Korean Food. Tap one and you’ll find more conversations on the same topic, making it easier to dive deeper into the things you care about.

We’re excited to hear more from the community as we continue to build Forum, and we’ll share more updates soon.

Caption add-ons for polls and comment prompts

Applies to all versions.

The Content Publishing API now supports caption add-ons. A caption add-on is either a poll, which offers two to four options for end users to vote on, or a comment prompt, which invites end users to reply in the comments. Add-ons are supported on feed posts and reels. Stories are not supported. Only available in Instagram API with Facebook Login.

To attach an add-on, set one of the new parameters when creating a media container:

• poll_attachment — A JSON object containing the options for the poll
• is_poll_duration_extended — a poll runs for 3 days by default. Set this to true to leave the poll open indefinitely
• is_comment_prompt_used — set to true to attach a comment prompt

A media can carry at most one caption add-on, so poll_attachment and is_comment_prompt_used cannot be used together on the same post.

Two new endpoints for reading the caption add-ons. Both return null when the media has no add-on of that type, and both reject story media.

Endpoints

• POST //media with the poll_attachment, is_poll_duration_extended, or is_comment_prompt_used parameter
• GET //poll_attachment — returns the poll’s options and the share of votes each option received
• GET //prompt_response — returns a paginated list of responses to the comment prompt

New Content Publishing errors

Applies to all versions.

New errors returning in the content publishing flow to help you debug the API request failure:

• The Facebook account linked to the Instagram account is restricted and cannot publish video
• The account or the merchant is not eligible for product tagging
• The caption is too long. The error now reports the length of the caption and the maximum allowed
• The caption contains too many hashtags, or the request tags too many users

Requests to graph.instagram.com that include a parameter supported only in Instagram API with Facebook Login, such as the branded content or caption add-on parameters, now return a 400 response naming the unsupported parameter. These parameters were previously ignored.

Non-blocking issues in the content publish response

Applies to all versions.

A media publish can succeed while part of the request is dropped, most often when the caption fails an integrity check.

The publish response now includes a config_issue field when this happens. The publish still succeeds and the field is omitted when there is nothing to report. Possible values:

• CAPTION_NOT_ATTACHED — the media published without its caption
• USER_TAGGING_FAILURE — the media published without its user tags

Endpoint

• POST //media_publish

More actionable Instagram Login authorization errors

Applies to all versions.

The Instagram Login authorization flow’s 400 Session Invalid error now returns more detailed underlying reason, including when the account is checkpointed or unconfirmed.

Sync your Instagram app name in the App Dashboard

Applies to all versions.

The Instagram app settings page in the App Dashboard now has a Sync app name button that sets your Instagram app’s name from your connected Facebook app, with an - IG suffix.