Instagram Will Use AI Worldwide to Find Teens Who Lie About Their Age
Meta is taking its AI age detection global: Instagram users it suspects are teens go into Teen Accounts, even with an adult birthday. What changes.
Meta is expanding the AI it uses to spot teenagers who claim to be adults to Instagram users around the world. The company announced on 9 November that accounts it suspects belong to teens will be placed in Teen Account protections even if they signed up with an adult birthday, which it says will affect millions more teens globally.
The same technology is still rolling out on Facebook, and Meta says it will begin launching something similar on Threads worldwide later this year.
What happens to a flagged account
Teen Accounts on Instagram, Facebook and Messenger come with built-in protections that automatically limit who can contact a teen, what content they see and how long they spend on the apps. Until now, the AI that moves suspected teens into those settings wasn't available globally. Meta says it has been "encouraged by the results" so far, but hasn't published figures on how accurate the system is or how many accounts it has moved.
The expansion builds on Meta's recent agreement with 52 bipartisan attorneys general across US states, territories and the District of Columbia. As part of that deal, the company says it's investing in stronger technology to catch accounts that may belong to children under 13, and to identify 13 to 17 year olds who give an adult birthday.
Apple's age signal, starting in Australia
In Australia, Meta has started using Apple's age-range signal as another way to work out how old someone is. When a parent sets up a phone for a teen, they can have the app store confirm the user's age and assign an age range. Apple then passes that range to developers such as Meta each time the teen downloads an app.
Meta uses the signal voluntarily, and it's using the announcement to push its long-standing argument that age checks belong at the app store level, required by law. "One verified signal from people's devices, shared consistently with all apps, is far more effective and privacy-preserving than asking every platform to verify age individually," the company writes.
What parents will see
This month, parents in the US will start seeing an in-feed Instagram video explaining the approach. It links to an article by Larry Magid, president and CEO of the online safety group ConnectSafely, which is available to parents worldwide.
Meta is also calling on TikTok and YouTube to adopt the same practices.
