Meta uses AI technology to look for children who lie about their Instagram age to bypass the company, the company announced Monday. When Meta finds an account suspected of belonging to a teenager, the platform will register them on a limited adolescent account, even if the account lists an adult birthday.
Teen accounts, which started on Instagram last year, are writing new users in an application experience with built -in protections. The safeguards are automatically applied to adolescents and limit who can contact a teenager in the application and limit the type of content that the account holder can see. Teenagers under the age of 16 need their parents’ permission to change any of these arrangements.
Instagram has been using AI to determine age for some time, but now the social network confirms that it is using technology to ensure that adolescents have access to Instagram through a teenager and not an adult.
The company told TechCrunch last year that it had planned to do so and noted that some of the ways they will find accounts belonging to adolescents who entered fake adult birthdays are by detecting happy birthdays and receiving reports from other users.
Instagram says it is taking steps to ensure that its technology is accurate and that adolescents are properly placed in adolescent accounts. However, if the company is wrong, it gives people the choice to change their arrangements.
“The digital world continues to evolve and we have to evolve with it,” the company writes in its blog post. “That is why it is important to work with parents to make sure that as many teenagers as possible have the protective arrangements coming with adolescent accounts.”
Instagram also announced that it is going to start sending alerts to parents that include information on how they can discuss the importance of providing the right age online with their adolescents. The platform notes that one of the most important ways in which parents can make sure their teens are in protected accounts is to check if their account lists their right birthday.
Today’s announcement comes two weeks after the adolescent accounts entered Facebook and Messenger.
Meta says it has registered at least 54 million teenagers in adolescents worldwide and that 97% of adolescents aged 13-15 remained in these protected bills.
