Meta to limit PG-13 rating use for teen accounts in Motion Picture Association deal

By Courtney Rozen

WASHINGTON, March 31 (Reuters) – Meta has agreed to scale back references to the PG-13 film rating when describing its teen accounts, resolving a dispute with the Motion Picture Association, the two groups said in a joint statement on Tuesday.

In October Meta said its Instagram platform would limit what users under 18 can see through filters inspired by the MPA’s PG-13 classification.

The MPA later sent a cease-and-desist letter, arguing the platform’s use of the label risked confusing parents and infringed its trademark. The deal announced on Tuesday settles that dispute, it said.

“While we welcome efforts to protect kids from content that may not be appropriate for them, this agreement helps ensure that parents do not conflate the two systems, which operate in very different contexts,” said Charles Rivkin, chairman and CEO of the MPA.

“By taking inspiration from a framework families know, our goal was to help parents better understand our teen content policies. We rigorously reviewed those policies against 13+ movie ratings criteria and parent feedback, updated them, and applied them to Teen Accounts by default,” a Meta spokesperson said.

“While that’s not changing, we’ve taken the MPA’s feedback on how we talk about that work.”

The MPA’s voluntary rating system assesses films based on their suitability for children. PG-13 means parental guidance is recommended for viewers under 13.

The MPA had argued that Meta’s similar rating system infringed its “PG-13” trademark. The trade group also said Meta’s claim that its filters align with the PG-13 rating was “literally false and highly misleading,” because the Facebook parent’s automated systems do not follow the curated, consensus-based process used for the film rating system.

The MPA and Meta said on Tuesday that Meta would “substantially reduce” its references to “PG-13” and include a disclaimer that the MPA is not involved with its ratings.

(Reporting by Courtney Rozen; additional reporting by Blake Brittain;editing by Tomasz Janowski and Louise Heavens)