Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, announced on Tuesday that it would introduce measures limiting what content young people can access, who they can talk to and how much time they spend on specific media. The new measures will begin with a rollout on Instagram, which began in the US on September 17, but will eventually be implemented on Facebook and WhatsApp as well.

The new policies include automatically making Instagram accounts of users under 16 private, limiting who can contact teen accounts or tag them in posts, muting certain words associated with online bullying, and defaulting to the most restrictive content access. It also encourages young people to spend less time on the app.

The new protocols follow years of debate about the impact of social media use on young people. Experts and politicians argue that social media and smartphones are responsible for the deterioration of teenagers’ wellbeing.

Laws and court cases have blamed social media for problems ranging from bullying and suicidal thoughts to eating disorders, attention problems and predatory behavior. Meta’s new guidelines address those concerns, and some of them could have positive effects, particularly those aimed at privacy. But they also target politicians’ rhetoric rather than teens’ well-being, and come at a time when some experts warn there is no causal link between teens’ social media use and these poor outcomes.

Meta and other social media companies have come under intense scrutiny for their alleged negative impact on young people’s mental health and wellbeing. Cyberbullying, eating disorders, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, poor school performance, sexual exploitation, and addiction to social media and technology are all issues Meta hopes to address with its new Instagram protocols.

In recent years, reports – such as the Wall Street Journal’s 2021 Facebook Files series – have examined how Meta’s leadership knew Instagram could be harmful to teenage girls’ body image, but still failed to mitigate the risks for vulnerable users. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has also blamed social media use for rising depression and anxiety rates; his office released a report last year warning that social media use was a major factor in the deterioration of young people’s mental well-being.

The report says that up to 95 percent of American children ages 13 to 17 use social media, and nearly 40 percent of children ages 8 to 12 do so as well. “We do not currently have enough evidence to determine whether social media is sufficiently safe for children and teens,” the report’s introduction states. The main problem areas are excessive use, harmful content, bullying and exploitation.

In a New York Times editorial in June, Murthy also called for a health department warning label on social media – similar to those on cigarette packs and alcohol bottles warning of the health risks of these products. The editorial also called for federal legislation to protect children who use social media.

One such bill – the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) – is already being considered in Congress. The Senate passed it in July, and on Wednesday it will be sent to the House for revisions. It is still unclear whether any version of the bill will pass both chambers, but President Joe Biden has indicated he would sign such a bill if it did.

The version of KOSA passed earlier this summer would require companies to allow children or teens to turn off targeted algorithmic features and restrict features that reward or enable ongoing use of the platform or game in question. It would also require companies to limit who can communicate with minors, as Meta’s new guidelines stipulate; “prevent other users (…) from viewing the minor’s personal information”; and mitigate and prevent harm to teens’ mental health.

The Senate-passed version of KOSA goes further than Meta’s new teen account guidelines, particularly when it comes to young people’s privacy. It is also unclear what impact, if any, Instagram teen accounts will have on legislation governing young people’s social media use.

The language in Meta’s press release targets parents’ concerns about their children’s social media use rather than young people’s online privacy, mental health or wellbeing.

In fact, Meta’s youth accounts and the KOSA legislation do little to allay cultural and political fears about the impact of social media on children’s wellbeing because we simply don’t know much about it. The available data does not show that social media use has more than a marginal impact on teen mental health.

“Many proposals to fix social media are not really questions of scientific rigor, they are not really questions about health or anxiety or depression,” Andrew Przybylski, a professor of human behavior and technology at the University of Oxford, told Vox. “They are fundamentally questions of taste.”

Christopher Ferguson, a psychology professor at Stetson University who studies the psychological impact of media on young people, says the uproar over the impact of social media on children’s well-being has all the hallmarks of a “moral panic,” echoing previous generations’ fears that radio, television, Dungeons & Dragons role-playing games, and other new media could destroy children’s minds and morals.

It’s unclear exactly what criteria Meta plans to use to decide whether the new rules will help kids and parents. When asked about those criteria, Meta spokeswoman Liza Crenshaw told Vox only that the company will “take additional steps to ensure teen accounts work for Instagram users.” Crenshaw did not respond to further questions by press time.

“This all seems like a well-intentioned effort,” Przybylski said. “But we don’t know if it will work.”