November 9 (Reuters) – Meta Platforms (META.O) announced on Monday that it will roll out its AI-based age-estimation technology globally. This move will bring millions of teenage Instagram users under the protections afforded to “teen accounts”—even in cases where the birth dates they provided indicate they are adults. The company has previously faced lawsuits alleging that its platforms cause harm to young users.
Here are further details:
Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger offer “teen accounts” that include built-in protections, automatically restricting who can contact teenagers, what content they see, and how much time they spend on the apps.
Meta stated that parents in the United States will begin receiving notifications from Instagram this month, explaining how their teenagers will be placed under age-appropriate protective measures.
In Australia, Meta has begun using Apple’s age-range signals as an additional method to help determine a user’s age.
Meta indicated that it is continuing to roll out this technology on Facebook and plans to introduce similar measures on the Threads platform globally later this year.
Meta faces multiple lawsuits alleging that its platforms cause harm to teenagers.
In August, Meta reached a settlement—valued at as much as $18 billion—with nearly every U.S. state and territory to resolve lawsuits filed by attorneys general regarding the harm the platforms have caused to young people.
Under the terms of the settlement, Meta agreed to improve its methods for identifying teenagers and children under the age of 13.
Last month, Meta reached a settlement with a teenage plaintiff during a trial in Los Angeles. The trial was intended to examine whether the design of Instagram and Facebook is addictive and potentially contributes to mental health issues and eating disorders.