Meta says it is doing more to ensure that as many young users as possible use the teen accounts it has created for Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger. Starting today, the company is testing artificial intelligence technology in the United States to determine whether a person is a teenager – even if they lied about their birthday to appear adult – and then move them to a teen account.
The company says that it has taken steps to ensure that the age detection technology is accurate, but if it is wrong, users that the AI suspects are teenagers have the option to change their settings and remain in an adult account. Although Meta has been using AI to determine age for some time, it says that applying the technology in this way is a “big change.”
Meta debuted teen accounts on Instagram last fall and recently expanded them to Facebook and Messenger. Teen accounts have stricter privacy and parental control settings. For example, these accounts are automatically made private and do not allow teens to exchange messages with strangers.
The company says that it has registered more than 54 million teens for such accounts and that 97 percent of users between the ages of 13 and 15 have chosen to leave them enabled (those under 16 need parental or guardian permission to opt out of a teen account). The company adds that more than 90 percent of parents surveyed agree that teen accounts have helped keep their children safe on Instagram.
Also, starting today, Meta says it will be sending Instagram messages to parents about resources they can use to talk to their teens about why it’s important to provide the correct age on their profiles so they can be registered for teen accounts. Meta says it is working on other ways to provide users with age-appropriate experiences, such as supporting federal legislation that would require app stores to ask for parental permission whenever a user under 16 wants to download an app.
