MPA Sends Meta Cease-and-Desist Letter Over Using ‘PG-13’ to Describe New Teen Instagram Settings

The Motion Picture Association has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Meta in an effort to get the social media company to stop associating itself with the MPA brand, TheWrap has learned.

The legal move comes a month after Instagram’s parent company said it would be placing content restrictions on teenagers’ accounts with a system “guided by PG-13” movie ratings.

However, the MPA insists that their human-driven methodology cannot be replicated by AI or any other technical process. They are demanding that Meta immediately and permanently stop exploiting the ratings brand and instead implement a series of remedial measures.

“The MPA’s ratings are determined by an organic and consensus-based process driven by an independent group of parents who view the entirety of a film and evaluate various factors in context. Meta’s attempts to restrict teen content literally cannot be ‘guided by’ or ‘aligned with’ the MPA’s PG-13 movie rating because Meta does not follow this curated process,” read the cease-and-desist letter, obtained by TheWrap. “Instead, Meta’s content restrictions appear to rely heavily on artificial intelligence or other automated technology measures.”

“The MPA has worked for decades to earn the public’s trust in its rating system. Meta’s claim that its Teen Accounts will be ‘guided by’ or ‘aligned with’ the MPA’s PG-13 rating and that Teen Account content will be ‘similar to’ what would be seen in a PG-13 movie has the real potential to erode that trust,” it further stated.

Meta, meanwhile, said it never implied that the accounts would be officially certified by the MPA. “Parents tell us they want to better understand what their teens see on Instagram. To make things simpler for them, we updated our teen content policies to be closer to PG-13 movie standards— which parents already know,” the company told TheWrap in a Wednesday statement. “We know social media isn’t the same as movies, but we made this change to support parents, and we hope to work with the MPA to continue bringing families this clarity.”

They also noted that the PG-13 references were made in good faith, remain accurate and were done with transparent guidelines shared via their newsroom — plus, they claim this all qualifies as “nominative fair use under well-established principles.”

The privacy update, which was still rolling out globally before the letter, makes it so teenagers cannot follow age-inappropriate accounts, search for terms such as “suicide, self-harm and eating disorders,” open questionable links via DM or receive improper responses from AI.

“Just like you might see some suggestive content or hear some strong language in a PG-13 movie, teens may occasionally see something like that on Instagram — but we’re going to keep doing all we can to keep those instances as rare as possible,” Meta announced in October. “We recognize no system is perfect, and we’re committed to improving over time.”

“The Motion Picture Association was not contacted by Meta prior to the announcement of its new content moderation tool for Instagram Teen Accounts,” the MPA initially responded. “We welcome efforts to protect kids from content that may not be appropriate for them, but assertions that Instagram’s new tool will be ‘guided by PG-13 movie ratings’ or have any connection to the film industry’s rating system are inaccurate.”

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