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Meta is expanding its age-verification tools by using AI to detect teenaged users and then automatically placing them into more restrictive Teen Account settings even if the user entered an adult birthday.
The company said in a blog post Monday that it will proactively identify accounts it suspects belong to teens and move them into these stricter settings. It acknowledged the system may make mistakes, and users will have the ability to adjust their settings back if needed.
“We’ve been using artificial intelligence to determine age for some time, but leveraging it in this way is a big change,” Meta said.
This move is part of a broader effort by Meta and other social media platforms to better protect young users amid growing pressure from parents and lawmakers who argue that tech companies aren’t doing enough to safeguard the safety and mental health of teens.
Instagram Teen Accounts, which launched last year, include built-in protections that limit who can contact teens, what content they can see and how long they can spend on the platform. Last year, the company automatically enabled these safety features for all teen users, requiring parental or guardian approval for anyone under 16 to make changes.
The company said about 97% of users under 16 keep these protections in place. It also recently extended the Teen Account experience to Facebook and Messenger.
Meta said it will begin sending notifications to Instagram parents with information about why it’s important to talk with their teens about providing accurate age information online.
“Understanding the age of people online is an industry-wide challenge,” the company said. “We’ll continue our efforts to help ensure teens are placed in age-appropriate online experiences, like Teen Accounts, but the most effective way to understand age is by obtaining parental approval and verifying age on the app store.”
Although some organizations have applauded these types of age verification methods, others like Devorah Heitner, author of Growing Up in Public, call the privacy implications “frightening.”
“For AI to be effective at determining user age, it would have to know more than it should, especially for a newer user with a limited digital footprint,” she said. “We need to see social apps do more to protect all users from invasive algorithms and harassment rather than focus on age-gating.”
