Instagram Now Uses AI to Enforce Teen Accounts on Suspected Teens

Meta has started using AI to enforce its new Teen Accounts on teenagers who may be lying about their age on Instagram. The new technology will first be used to find suspected teens on Instagram in the US.

Instagram added Teen Accounts in September 2024 to better protect teenagers from unwanted contacts and potentially harmful content on the platform. As of today, teenagers who create a new Instagram account automatically get a Teen Account, but it may still be tempting for teens to pretend to be adults and escape parental controls on the platform.

“Today, we’re beginning to test AI technology in the US that is designed to proactively find accounts we suspect belong to teens, even if the account lists an adult birthday, and place them in Teen Account settings,” Meta explained today. “We’ve been using artificial intelligence to help determine age ranges for some time, but leveraging it in this way is a big change.”

If Meta’s AI systems mistakenly apply Teen Accounts to Instagram users who aren’t teens, the company says that affected users will still have the option to change their settings. Meta said that verifying the age of people online was “an industry-wide challenge,” adding that parental supervision and better App Store protections are also necessary.

Starting today, Instagram will also start informing parents on Instagram about how they can help their teens review their age so they get a Teen Account with built-in protections. To help protect kids online, Apple also announced back in February that it will soon allow parents to share their kids’ age range with app developers so they can get an age-appropriate experience in the apps they use.