Meta is digging in its heels after Hollywood's rating watchdog told the company to stop borrowing movie language for Instagram's teen safety features. The Motion Picture Association fired off a cease and desist letter last week, claiming Meta's use of "PG-13" to describe teen account content restrictions is misleading and could damage decades of public trust in movie ratings.
The legal showdown started brewing when Meta rolled out its revamped teen account features last month, promising parents that young users would only see content "similar to what they'd see in a PG-13 movie." The company pitched it as a straightforward way to communicate content boundaries - but Hollywood's rating gatekeepers weren't having it.
The Motion Picture Association, which has controlled movie ratings since 1968, sent Meta a strongly worded cease and desist letter on October 28th. According to documents obtained by The Wall Street Journal, the MPA called Meta's usage "literally false and highly misleading."
What's got the MPA fired up isn't just trademark protection - it's about maintaining the credibility of a system that influences what millions of families watch. "The MPA has worked for decades to earn the public's trust in its rating system," the cease and desist letter states, according to copies seen by The Verge. "Meta's claim that its Teen Accounts will be 'guided by' or 'aligned with' the MPA's PG-13 rating has the real potential to erode that trust."
The dispute highlights a fundamental clash between how tech companies communicate safety features and how traditional media industries protect their intellectual property. When Meta first announced the teen account overhaul, it seemed like a clever shorthand - everyone knows what PG-13 means, right?
But the MPA sees it differently. The organization argues that Meta's content moderation doesn't follow their "curated process" for determining what gets a PG-13 rating. Movie ratings involve human reviewers, appeals processes, and decades of precedent. Instagram's algorithmic content filtering? Not so much.
The timing couldn't be more awkward for Meta, which has been under intense pressure from lawmakers and parents to better protect teen users. The company has invested heavily in new safety tools, including requiring parental supervision for users under 16 and limiting who can message teens. Using familiar movie ratings seemed like an easy way to explain complex content policies.
Meta isn't backing down though. In its response to the MPA, also seen by The Verge, the company claims fair use protections. "Meta has never claimed or implied that its Teen Account offerings are officially PG-13 rated or certified by the MPA - in fact, it has expressly stated the opposite," the company wrote.
