Meta Platforms Inc., the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, said advertisers will no longer be able to use a teenager’s gender to target them with promoted messages on its sites. 

The updated settings are scheduled to go into effect in February, according to a company blog post, and will mean advertisers can market to teens based only on age and location. Meta previously stopped advertisers from targeting teenagers based on their Facebook or Instagram activity, such as the Pages they like. 

“We recognize that teens aren’t necessarily as equipped as adults to make decisions about how their online data is used for advertising, particularly when it comes to showing them products available to purchase,” Meta said Tuesday in its blog post. “For that reason, we’re further restricting the options advertisers have to reach teens, as well as the information we use to show ads to teens.”

Teenagers have been an important demographic for Facebook and Instagram for years, though attracting them has been harder for Facebook due to rising competition from other services, including Google’s YouTube and ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok. Facebook and Instagram’s impact on teenagers’ mental health has also drawn criticism from politicians and regulators. 

Kids must be 13 years old to create an account on Meta’s social networks. The changes regarding targeted advertising will apply to those 13 to 17 years old.

—Bloomberg News