Meta pauses teen access to AI characters ahead of new version

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

The move comes days before a case against Meta is set to go to trial in New Mexico, in which the company is accused of not making an effort to protect kids from sexual exploitation on its apps. Wired reported Thursday that Meta has sought to limit discovery related to social media’s impact on teen mental health.

In October, the company previewed controls for AI characters, allowing parents and guardians to monitor topics and block access to certain characters. Meta said parents would be able to completely turn off chats with AI characters. These features were set to release this year, but the company is now turning off AI characters altogether for teens while it updates the AI characters to a newer version.

Meta said that it heard from parents that they wanted more insights and control over their teens’ interactions with AI characters, which is why it decided to make these changes.

The company has been cracking down on teens’ access to AI content in its apps. Also in October, Meta rolled out parental control features on Instagram, focusing on tailoring the teen experience of interacting with AI on its apps. These features, which were inspired by the PG-13 movie rating, restricted teen access to certain topics like extreme violence, nudity, and graphic drug use.

“Starting in the coming weeks, teens will no longer be able to access AI characters across our apps until the updated experience is ready. This will apply to anyone who has given 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 it rolls out the new AI characters, they will have built-in parental controls. The company said that the new characters will give age-appropriate responses and will stick to topics like education, sport, and hobbies.

Social media companies are under heavy scrutiny from regulators. Apart from the aforementioned case in New Mexico, Meta is also facing a trial 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.

Besides social platforms, AI companies have had to modify their experience for teens after facing lawsuits alleging to play a part in aiding self-harm. In October, Character.AI, the startup that allows users to chat with various AI avatars, disallowed open-ended conversations with chatbots for users who were under 18. In November, the startup said it would build interactive stories for kids. In the last few months, OpenAI added new teen safety rules for ChatGPT and also started predicting a user’s age to apply content restrictions.

Correction: This post was updated to clarify there new version of AI characters will be accessible to everyone, not just teens, when it launches. It will include parental controls.