LONDON: With relationships between governments and social media companies under strain worldwide over the platforms’ impact on young users, Saudi Arabia is attempting a different approach.
Rather than restricting access, the Saudi General Authority for Media Regulation and Meta have launched a joint awareness campaign around parental supervision tools that focuses on limiting the dangers associated with overconsumption, bullying, and predatory behavior online.
“This partnership comes in light of the rapid growth in platform usage among children and adolescents, and the associated challenges that require stronger protective measures,” a Gmedia spokesperson told Arab News.
The initiative focuses on enabling parents to “more effectively supervise their children’s digital experiences and promotes safer usage practices.”
The Kingdom is a prime case study. According to DataReportal, 99 percent of the Saudi population uses the internet — a figure that matches the top penetration rates globally alongside the Netherlands and Norway. Social media reaches 38.6 million identities, about 111 percent of the population, a reflection of both multi-platform habits and one of the region’s most digitally active expatriate communities. Of those, 27.9 percent are under 18.
“A significant and growing share of our users across the region are teens, and parents there are navigating the same concerns as parents everywhere,” Basma Ammari, director of public policy MENA at Meta, told Arab News. “That is precisely why we wanted to bring this education effort here now.”
Meta is trying to meet “parents where they are, in the language they speak, with guidance that reflects the values and context of this region,” she added.
The Silicon Valley-based company has long sought to adopt safety measures to protect young users under pressure from advocacy groups, experts and, more recently, authorities. At present, every teen on Instagram is automatically placed into a Teen Account — a private account by default, with strict messaging settings and sensitive content restrictions. Meta recently rolled out what Ammari described as the “biggest update” to Teen Accounts since its launch in September 2024.
“Over the past year, the policies that guide what teens see and engage with have moved from a patchwork of separate guidelines to a single, holistic content framework, with stronger enforcement applied consistently across all surfaces, from Explore and Feed to Stories, Search, and even the accounts teens follow,” she said.
While policies are “globally consistent,” Meta maintains a local focus. “We recognize that education and awareness require a local approach. The Gmedia partnership itself is a localization effort,” said Ammari, adding that tools are adapted to be culturally relevant and available in Arabic.
Teen Accounts are now mandatory globally, with users under 16 requiring parental permission to change safety-related settings. For parents who want to go further, a newly launched Limited Content setting allows them to filter content and restrict search.
“We also understand that every family is different and, for some parents, even our updated policy and enforcement for 13+ may still feel too mature for their teen,” Ammari said.
Awareness remains a separate challenge. A 2024 peer-reviewed study of school adolescents in Jeddah (ages 12–18) found they spend an average of 6.33 hours per day online, mostly on social networks — well above the three-hour national average. Broader regional data from the 2023 Arab Youth Survey suggests that Arab youth spend more than 3.5 hours a day on social platforms, use an average of 8.4 accounts each, and that about 61 percent say social media addiction is affecting their mental well-being. The same trend shows young users spending most of their time on TikTok and YouTube, followed by Instagram and Snapchat.
“Awareness is a shared challenge across the industry and we take it seriously,” said Ammari.
An internal Meta study, Project MYST, found that parental supervision and controls had little impact on teens’ compulsive social media use. A separate World Happiness Report study found that usage is heaviest among Gen Z, men, single individuals, less religious and more affluent respondents, and those with higher education — all more likely to be classified as heavy users, spending more than five hours per day.
“Parental supervision is an additional layer for families who want more visibility and control, and we encourage parents to use it. But the safety net does not depend on it,” said Ammari, adding that “the broader scientific community has not reached a consensus on the specific claims in this space, and we think that context matters. What we are focused on is building products that protect teens by design, and that is exactly what Teen Accounts do.”
Child safety advocates have argued that Teen Accounts could and should have been introduced years ago, and that the push to promote them is partly an effort to preempt regulation.
“This work has been a genuine progression,” Ammari said. “Teen Accounts represent the culmination of that work.” She added that as the digital landscape evolves, so do user behavior and, consequently, policy.
“That is precisely why safety cannot be a one-time effort. It has to be continuously built upon, and it has to be a shared endeavour.”
Meta, like other major social media platforms, has been under intense scrutiny from global regulators which have taken steps to rein in the industry rather than wait for self-regulation. Some countries have moved toward outright bans on social media for under-teens, though experts have criticized such measures as extreme, calling for a more balanced approach.
For the moment, Gmedia, which regulates and oversees the sector at arm’s length from government, says it remains committed to collaboration.
“The authority focuses on raising awareness among parents and supporting them in understanding and using supervision tools effectively, as part of its efforts to promote safer digital practices,” said the spokesperson, describing the campaign as reflecting an ongoing engagement with Meta and the authority’s broader approach of working with global platforms “through continuous collaboration and targeted initiatives.”
As AI becomes more embedded in social media, Meta says it is preparing further safeguards.
“Parents have told us clearly that they want more oversight of how their teens interact with AI, and we have committed to building parental controls specifically for that purpose,” said Ammari.
“Those controls will give parents two key capabilities: the option to turn off one‑on‑one chats with Meta AI entirely, and the ability to see what kinds of topics their teen is discussing with Meta AI.
“We also recognize that AI is a new and evolving technology,” she said, adding that Meta has set up the AI Wellbeing Expert Council to help shape teen-focused features with a particular emphasis on safety, age suitability, and wider well-being concerns.
Meta said it is also using AI to flag teens who may be misrepresenting their age, drawing on contextual signals from posts, comments, bios and captions, as well as tools that can read broader age-related cues in photos and videos without facial recognition.
The company said human oversight will remain essential.
Asked whether Meta plans to make supervision compulsory, Ammari replied: “We have already done something more significant than making supervision the default. We have made protection the default.”
For now, Meta appears to have persuaded Gmedia of its intentions. Whether parents will be satisfied is a different question.
