As Nigeria’s digital population continues to expand, Meta is strengthening investments in youth online safety through partnerships with government, educators, and civil society organisations.
The company used the Nigeria Youth Safety Summit in Abuja to unveil initiatives aimed at promoting digital literacy, parental supervision, and safer online experiences for teenagers across its platforms.
Through keynote presentations, the Parents Learn & Brunch session held in partnership with the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development, and panel discussions featuring parent creators and parents participants explored practical approaches to supporting safer online engagement. The summit also reinforced the importance of multi-stakeholder collaboration in advancing digital wellbeing and online safety for young people.
“At Meta, our goal is to provide teens with safe, age-appropriate online experiences, and events like the Nigeria Youth Safety Summit reflect our commitment to promoting safer and more positive digital experiences for teens. With products such as Teen Accounts, Meta is putting the right protections in place so teens can explore their interests and express their creativity in a safe, age-appropriate space. We will continue to build the safety features and tools that families need to support young people online.”- said Sylvia Musalagani, head of Safety Policy, EMEA at Meta.
At the centre of Meta’s youth safety efforts are Teen Accounts, a reimagined experience across Meta’s apps designed specifically for teenagers. Teen Accounts include built-in protections that address parents’ concerns by promoting age-appropriate experiences, limiting unwanted contact, and encouraging healthier digital habits.
Teen Accounts are turned on automatically for all teens, with built-in protections including private accounts, the strictest messaging settings, sensitive content restrictions, limited interactions (tagging/mentions only from people they follow), time limit reminders after 60 minutes each day, and sleep mode between 10 PM and 7 AM. Teens under 16 need a parent’s permission to change any of these settings to be less strict.
“Child online safety is one of our central pillars and we are steadfast in our mandate to safeguard the Nigerian child from technology-enabled violence.
Children cannot navigate the complexities of the online world without informed adults guiding them because safety begins with the parents. Safety is a shared tripartite responsibility between parents, technological industries, and government. That is the fundamental premise of today’s summit, a hands-on walk through of parental supervision tools and Teen Accounts. We appreciate Meta for the collaboration and for creating a platform for these important conversations,” said Hajiya Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim, minister for Women Affairs and Social Development, Nigeria.
Meta also provides parents with more ways to oversee their teens’ online experiences through enhanced parental supervision tools. These features allow parents to receive notifications when their teen reports content, as well as to gain insights into who their teen has been messaging. Parents can also set daily time limits for Instagram use, schedule breaks at specific times of day or night, and monitor the age-appropriate content topics their teen chooses to engage with based on their interests.
“I want to thank Meta for this great achievement. At the ministry, one of the things we provide to all Nigerians is the skills to succeed in this digital world while making sure we protect them against emerging threats. We see a strong connection between the objectives of this summit and the goals of our National Youth Data Protection and Awareness Training Programme. We believe that keeping young people safe online is a shared responsibility. Government, technology companies, schools, parents, social organisations, community groups, and young people themselves all have a role to play. We encourage Meta to make the tools, guides, and learning materials from this initiative more widely available so that young people across Nigeria can continue to benefit from this laudable summit,” said Ayodele Olawande, minister For Youth Development, Nigeria.
Through a series of conversations centred around youth online safety and wellbeing, the summit provided a platform for dialogue, knowledge-sharing, and collective action aimed at strengthening partnerships and advancing a shared vision for youth online safety.
