Instagram will test artificial intelligence (AI) technology to help find the accounts of teenagers posing as adults, parent company Meta announced Monday.
The technology, which will begin testing Monday, will “proactively” search for accounts it suspects could belong to teenagers, even if they enter a false birth date when creating the account.
“We’ve been using artificial intelligence to help determine age ranges for some time, but leveraging it in this way is a big change,” Meta wrote in a blog post Monday.
Should AI determine the account actually belongs to a teenager, it will implement Instagram’s “Teen Account” settings.
These accounts, which were rolled out last fall for users under 18, have stricter content moderation settings and give parents more control over the user’s experience.
Teenagers under 16 require a parent or guardian’s approval to make changes to the default settings.
The technology giant said it is making efforts to ensure the technology is accurate, but will give people the option to change their settings if “we make a mistake.”
Meta said parents will also receive notifications on Instagram with further information on “how they can have conversations with their teens on the importance of providing the correct age online.”
The changes come amid a broader debate in the industry over age verification, with major tech companies in disagreement over who or what is responsible for confirming users’ ages.
Meta, along with other social media apps like X and Snapchat, believe the onus to verify kids’ ages is on the app stores.
Meta doubled down on this stance Monday, writing in the blog, “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.”
Meanwhile, Apple and Google, two of the market’s largest app stores, argue app developers are better equipped to handle age verification and that age verification presents risks to the privacy of minors and their parents or guardians.
Apple argues a requirement to verify age on the actual app marketplace would make all users hand over sensitive information, when only a limited number of apps need such specific information about users.
Apple rolled out what it called “age assurance” technology earlier this year, which allows parents to be able to select the age range of their kids instead of providing the exact birth dates when setting up child accounts.
Meta’s Instagram and Facebook have come under increased scrutiny by lawmakers and parents who argue the platforms have not done enough to protect young users from harmful content online.
Lawmakers failed to pass most related legislation last session, including the Kids Online Safety Act, which would create regulations for the kinds of features tech and social media companies offer kids online.
