Meta pauses teen access to AI characters ahead of new version

Meta said today that it is pausing teens’ access to its AI characters globally across all its apps. The company said it is not giving up on its efforts, but wants to develop an updated version of AI characters for teens, the company told TechCrunch exclusively.

The move comes days before a case against Meta goes to trial in New Mexico, accusing the company of making no effort to protect children from sexual exploitation in its apps. Wired reported Thursday that Meta has attempted to limit discoveries regarding social media’s impact on teens’ mental health.

In October, the company previewed parental controls for AI characters, allowing parents and guardians to monitor topics and block access to certain characters. Meta said parents could completely disable chats with AI characters. These features were supposed to arrive this year, but the company is now disabling AI characters altogether for teens while it updates the AI ​​characters to a newer version.

Meta said it heard from parents wanting more insight and control over their teens’ interactions with AI characters, so it decided to make these changes.

The company is cracking down on teens’ access to AI content in its apps. Also in October, Meta introduced parental control features to Instagram, with a focus on tailoring the teen experience in terms of interacting with AI in its apps. These features, inspired by the PG-13 movie rating, limited teens’ access to certain topics, such as extreme violence, nudity and explicit drug use.

“Starting in the coming weeks, teens will no longer have access to AI characters in our apps until the updated experience is ready. This will apply to anyone who gave us a teen birthday, as well as people who claim to be adults but who we suspect are teens based on our age prediction technology,” the company said in an updated blog post.

Meta added that when the new AI characters are rolled out, they will have built-in parental controls. The company said the new characters will have age-appropriate reactions and stick to topics such as education, sports and hobbies.

Social media companies are under heavy scrutiny from regulators. In addition to the aforementioned case in New Mexico, Meta is also facing a lawsuit next week, accusing the platform of causing social media addiction. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is expected to take the witness stand in that case once the trial begins.

In addition to social platforms, AI companies have had to adapt their experiences for teens after facing lawsuits claiming they played a role in aiding self-harm. In October, Character.AI, the startup that lets users chat with various AI avatars, banned open-ended conversations with chatbots for users under 18. In November, the startup said it would build interactive stories for children. In recent months, OpenAI has added new teen safety rules to ChatGPT and has started predicting a user’s age to apply content restrictions.

Correction: This post has been updated to clarify that the new version of AI Characters will be accessible to everyone, not just teens, when it launches. It will include parental controls.