Meta announced today that it will temporarily suspend access by teenagers to its AI characters in its apps worldwide. The company exclusively told TechCrunch that it’s not abandoning its efforts and wants to develop an updated version of its AI characters for teens.
The move comes just days before the case against Meta goes to trial in New Mexico. The lawsuit accuses the company of failing to protect children from sexual exploitation on its apps. Wired reported Thursday that Meta is seeking to limit discoveries about the effects of social media on teens’ mental health.
The company previewed parental controls for AI characters in October, allowing parents and guardians to monitor topics and block access to specific characters. Mehta said parents can turn off chatting with AI characters completely. These features were supposed to be released this year, but the company is now turning off AI characters completely for teens while it updates them to a new version.
Meta said it made these changes after hearing from parents that they wanted more insight and control over how their teens interact with AI characters.
The company is cracking down on teens’ access to AI content within its apps. Meta also rolled out parental control features on Instagram in October, with a focus on customizing the experience for teens interacting with AI on the app. These features were inspired by PG-13 movie ratings, which restricted youth’s access to certain topics such as extreme violence, nudity, and graphic drug use.
“In the coming weeks, teens will no longer have access to AI characters across our apps until the updated experience is ready. This also applies to anyone who has a teenage birthday, and anyone who we claim is an adult but suspect to be a teenager based on our age prediction technology,” the company said in an updated blog post.
Meta added that parental controls will be included when rolling out new AI characters. The company said the new characters will have age-appropriate reactions and focus on topics such as education, sports and hobbies.
Social media companies are under intense scrutiny from regulators. Separate from the aforementioned lawsuit in New Mexico, Meta is facing a trial next week accusing its platform of creating social media addiction. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is expected to take the witness stand in the case once the trial begins.
Beyond social platforms, AI companies are also having to change their experiences for teens after facing lawsuits for promoting self-harm. In October, Character.AI, a startup that allows users to chat with various AI avatars, banned users under 18 from having unrestricted conversations with chatbots. In November, the startup announced it would build interactive stories for kids. In recent months, OpenAI added new teen safety rules to ChatGPT and began predicting a user’s age to enforce content restrictions.
Correction: This post has been updated to clarify that when a new version of the AI character is released, it will be accessible to everyone, not just teens. This includes parental controls.
