By Our Reporter
Meta has expanded the global deployment of its artificial intelligence technology to identify teenagers who provide false birth dates to create accounts as adults and ensure they receive age-appropriate protections across its platforms.
The company announced the development on Monday, saying the technology would help more teenagers using Instagram benefit from its built-in Teen Account safeguards, even when they misrepresent their ages to bypass restrictions.
Meta described the practice of teenagers falsifying their ages online to access services and experiences intended for adults as an “industry-wide challenge”.
“Ensuring all teens receive these protections depends on knowing their age,” the company said.
The Teen Account features, available on Instagram, Facebook and Messenger, are designed to provide a safer online experience for young users by automatically restricting who can contact them, the type of content they can access and the amount of time they spend on the platforms.
According to Meta, its AI technology can identify users suspected to be teenagers, even when they register with adult birth dates, and automatically place them under the appropriate Teen Account protections.
The company said its experience since introducing the technology had been encouraging, noting that more teenagers were being placed under age-appropriate safeguards.
It added that the worldwide expansion would enable millions more teenagers using Instagram to benefit from the protections.
Meta said the initiative was also intended to give parents greater peace of mind, stressing its commitment to ensuring that teenagers receive appropriate safeguards regardless of their location.
The company further disclosed that it was continuing to deploy the technology on Facebook and planned to introduce similar AI-powered age-detection capabilities globally on Threads later this year.