Motion Picture Association sends Cease and Desist notice to Meta, says: Stop using our label for Instagram

Motion Picture Association of America (MPA) has issued a formal cease-and-desist notice to Meta Platforms . MPA has demanded the Facebook-parent Meta to stop using the term “PG-13” to describe content filters on Instagram ’s teen accounts . As reported by Reuters, MPA has a responsibility of overseeing the film industry’s official rating system and has called Meta’s use of the label “literally false and highly misleading”, warning it could erode public trust in decades of media standards.

The dispute revolves around Meta’s recent announcement that teen accounts on Instagram would by default be restricted to viewing content “guided by PG-13 movie ratings.” In the notice issued MPA said that it was not consulted prior to the rollout and argues that Meta’s AI-driven content moderation system bears no resemblance to the rigorous standards used in film classification.


Hollywood vs Silicon Valley
As per the Reuters report, in a strong worded letter sent to Meta’s chief legal officer Jennifer Newsstand, MPA has demanded the company to “immediately and permanently disassociate” the teen safety features it rolled out recently from the MPA’s rating system. The association also stressed on the fact that its ratings are results of human review and industry consensus, not automated algorithms.

“The MPA has worked for decades to earn the public’s trust in its rating system,” the letter stated. “Any dissatisfaction with Meta’s automated classification will inevitably cause the public to question the integrity of the MPA’s rating system”.


Here’s what Meta said on the issue
Meta has also responded on the issue and has clarified that it did not claim that its teen accounts were officially certified by the MPA. However, the company has not yet indicated whether it will revise or remove the PG-13 language from its platform.

This latest controversy highlights the growing tension between traditional media regulators and tech platforms that increasingly define their own content standards.


Amazon sends cease-and-desist letter to Perplexity
This is the second time this week that a tech company has received a cease-and-desist letter. Recently, Amazon sent a cease-and-desist letter to Perplexity AI, demanding the artificial intelligence search startup stop allowing its new AI browser agent, Comet, to make purchases on Amazon for users, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter. According to the report, Amazon accused Perplexity of computer fraud and terms-of-service violations, alleging the company’s AI agent failed to disclose when it was making purchases on behalf of users. The e-commerce giant claimed Comet degraded the Amazon shopping experience and created privacy vulnerabilities, the people said, asking not to be named because the matter is private.


Perplexity pushed back, accusing Amazon of using its market dominance to “bully a smaller competitor” developing a rival AI shopping agent. The dispute marks one of the first major clashes over how autonomous AI agents should operate online — especially as they begin to handle complex user tasks such as shopping, booking travel, and managing digital workflows. Like OpenAI and Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Perplexity has been reimagining the traditional browser to allow