"Stricter Private Messaging Settings for Teens
To help protect teens from unwanted contact on Instagram, we restrict adults over the age of 19 from messaging teens who don’t follow them, and we limit the type and number of direct messages (DMs) people can send to someone who doesn’t follow them to one text-only message.
Today we’re announcing an additional step to help protect teens from unwanted contact by turning off their ability to receive DMs from anyone they don’t follow or aren’t connected to on Instagram – including other teens – by default.
Under this new default setting, teens can only be messaged or added to group chats by people they already follow or are connected to, helping teens and their parents feel even more confident that they won’t hear from people they don’t know in their DMs. Teens in supervised accounts will need to get their parent’s permission to change this setting (more below).
This default setting will apply to all teens under the age of 16 (or under 18 in certain countries). Those already on Instagram will see a notification at the top of their Feed letting them know we’re making these changes to their message settings.
We’re also making these changes to teens’ default settings on Messenger, where under 16s (or under 18 in certain countries) will only receive messages from Facebook friends, or people they’re connected to through phone contacts, for example."
To help protect teens from unwanted contact on Instagram, we restrict adults over the age of 19 from messaging teens who don’t follow them, and we limit the type and number of direct messages (DMs) people can send to someone who doesn’t follow them to one text-only message.
Today we’re announcing an additional step to help protect teens from unwanted contact by turning off their ability to receive DMs from anyone they don’t follow or aren’t connected to on Instagram – including other teens – by default.
Under this new default setting, teens can only be messaged or added to group chats by people they already follow or are connected to, helping teens and their parents feel even more confident that they won’t hear from people they don’t know in their DMs. Teens in supervised accounts will need to get their parent’s permission to change this setting (more below).
This default setting will apply to all teens under the age of 16 (or under 18 in certain countries). Those already on Instagram will see a notification at the top of their Feed letting them know we’re making these changes to their message settings.
We’re also making these changes to teens’ default settings on Messenger, where under 16s (or under 18 in certain countries) will only receive messages from Facebook friends, or people they’re connected to through phone contacts, for example."
Facebook Changing Search Warrant Production
The following is an announcement provided by Jason Berry over at META, "In a few weeks Meta has an update to the formatting of their records that are made available and downloaded from their Law Enforcement Online Request System (LEORS www.facebook.com and www.whatsapp.com). This is really important as various law enforcement agencies may use 3rd party vendor’s software to parse the records. PDFs will no longer be available as of April 1st on Meta’s LEORs and the archive format will be the only format available to download records.
META Records / Format Changes / PDF Deprecation
Meta is updating the format of records being returned for legal requests for data for Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp accounts. The “PDF” has always been an option to download records/ data requested and the “Achieve” format was something Meta added several years ago. This for downloading records from search warrants, summons, subpoenas and other types of legal requests. The “PDF” format is being deprecated and no longer an option as of April 1, 2024. The “Achieve” format (HTML) will be the only format available and is also being updated with improvements to its formatting. These changes apply to Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Oculus accounts.
The improvements and updates to the Achieve format will begin the first week of February 2024. These are some of those improvements:
• Navigation and printing tools have been moved to the left hand side of the screen, enabling easy navigation to specific categories within the records and making printing more accessible.
• Added the “Meta Platforms Business Records Page X” from the PDFs. While scrolling through the record, you will see platform specific, color coded banners with page numbers. This enhancement will facilitate easier navigation throughout the document, enable more precise printing, and allow easy identification of the source of the data.
o Facebook / Instagram records contain blue banners.
o WhatsApp will records will contain green banners.
• Expanded print Options for records now enable you to print by page range or page number; you can also still print the entire report or a specific property if you desire.
o If you require a PDF, you can utilize your browsers print options to print the archive format as a PDF (Note that PDFs will not contain non-photo media)
• The Zip files containing the record have been reorganized so that the nomenclature of the files is more intuitive. For example:
o Index.html has been renamed records.html
o README.txt has been renamed instructions.txt
• Hash values have been adjusted, allowing easier validation of the context and the source.
• Data context of the records has not changed."
Meta is updating the format of records being returned for legal requests for data for Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp accounts. The “PDF” has always been an option to download records/ data requested and the “Achieve” format was something Meta added several years ago. This for downloading records from search warrants, summons, subpoenas and other types of legal requests. The “PDF” format is being deprecated and no longer an option as of April 1, 2024. The “Achieve” format (HTML) will be the only format available and is also being updated with improvements to its formatting. These changes apply to Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Oculus accounts.
The improvements and updates to the Achieve format will begin the first week of February 2024. These are some of those improvements:
• Navigation and printing tools have been moved to the left hand side of the screen, enabling easy navigation to specific categories within the records and making printing more accessible.
• Added the “Meta Platforms Business Records Page X” from the PDFs. While scrolling through the record, you will see platform specific, color coded banners with page numbers. This enhancement will facilitate easier navigation throughout the document, enable more precise printing, and allow easy identification of the source of the data.
o Facebook / Instagram records contain blue banners.
o WhatsApp will records will contain green banners.
• Expanded print Options for records now enable you to print by page range or page number; you can also still print the entire report or a specific property if you desire.
o If you require a PDF, you can utilize your browsers print options to print the archive format as a PDF (Note that PDFs will not contain non-photo media)
• The Zip files containing the record have been reorganized so that the nomenclature of the files is more intuitive. For example:
o Index.html has been renamed records.html
o README.txt has been renamed instructions.txt
• Hash values have been adjusted, allowing easier validation of the context and the source.
• Data context of the records has not changed."