The days of teenagers lying about their age on Instagram are over. Meta has announced that they’re using AI-powered age detection technology to enroll teens suspected of misrepresenting their age to a restricted Teen Account.
Instagram’s parent company announced the AI-driven crackdown on teen Instagram users in a blog post on Monday, saying that it’s leveraging its AI, which it has been using to detect the age ranges of many of its users for some time, to detect accounts it suspects belong to teenagers who lied about their age to bypass safeguards, even if they have an adult birthday listed. Instagram said it is taking steps to ensure the AI is accurate and will correctly place teen users into Teen Accounts, but will give users an option to change their settings if their account has been placed into a Teen Account by mistake.
In addition to using AI for age detection, Instagram said it will begin sending notifications to parents of teen users with information on talking to their kids about the importance of listing the correct age on their social media accounts. Parents will need an Instagram account of their own in order to receive those notifications, which will go out effective immediately.
“The digital world continues to evolve and we have to evolve with it,” Meta said. “That’s why it’s important that we work together with parents to make sure as many teens as possible have the protective settings that come with Teen Accounts.”
Teen Accounts were introduced on Instagram last year in order to make the platform safer for teens under 16 by limiting their exposure to sensitive content, including violent images and Reels that promote cosmetic procedures, and restricting who can contact them. Other safeguards that have been built into the Teen Accounts include making their accounts private by default, only receiving messages and tags by people they follow, receiving a notification to take a break after scrolling on Instagram for 60 minutes.