Instagram testing AI tools to identify and restrict young users misrepresenting their age

Mumbai: Meta, the parent company of social media platform Instagram, announced that they are running trials on AI tools to detect young users pretending to be adults on the photo and video sharing platforms. 

The decision comes in light of the increasing number of mental-health issues among young people being a concern since teenagers are exposed to inappropriate content, online predators and addictive algorithms. 

Meta recently took to their blog and stated, “Parents are busy and don’t always have the time to review these settings. That’s why we’re continuing to take additional steps to ensure as many teens as possible are in Teen Account settings. 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.”

This move aims to reinforce safety measures for minors and bring the platform in line with global child protection regulations wherein the user will be flagged as underage should they fall in a behavioural category or show certain interaction patterns and their account will be turned into a Teen Account, depending on how old the account is in order to detect age of the user. Parents will be notified about this along with Meta sending out required information about how they can have conversations with their teens on the importance of providing the correct age online. 

Teen Account comes with restrictions compared to the regular account. It is a private account by default, also disabling strangers from sending DMs and keeps a tab on time spent on the app.