A tech company announced teen-safety updates across its social apps, including AI-based age checks and enhanced parental controls. Supervising parents will be notified if teens search for suicide-related terms, with a future rollout to Family Center across its services.
Meta announced a package of safety updates designed to strengthen protections for teen accounts across Instagram, Facebook and Messenger.
Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, said the changes aim to ensure teens are enrolled in the right protections, give parents greater visibility into their teen’s online experiences, and expand safeguards that support teen wellbeing.
"Keeping teens safe is one of our most important priorities," said Natasha Jog, Director, Public Policy, Meta, India.
The company said its age-assurance system will use AI to analyze entire profiles, posts, comments, bios and captions, and expand those checks into Instagram Reels, Instagram Live and Facebook Groups to identify accounts likely belonging to underage users.
Meta is adding visual analysis that scans photos and videos for general age cues such as height or bone structure, which it says is not facial recognition and does not identify the specific person in an image.
Instagram will notify supervising parents if their teen repeatedly searches for terms related to suicide or self-harm within a short period, a feature Meta said has rolled out to supervising parents in the EU, Brazil and India and that supervising parents and teens will start receiving notifications today to announce the alerts.
Parents can now manage supervision from Family Center at familycenter.meta.com/supervision, and in the coming months Meta said Family Center will provide a holistic view of teen activity across Instagram, Meta Horizon, Facebook and Messenger, including aggregated time spent.
