On Friday (local time), Meta announced parents' controls in advance, expected to launch next year, to manage teenagers' chat experience with AI characters on the company's platform.
These tools allow parents to block certain characters, track conversation topics, and set interaction time limits.
Starting in the coming months, parents can completely turn off the chat feature with AI characters for adolescents.
This action will not affect access to Meta AI, the company's multi-functional AI chatbot, which only discusses age-appropriate content.
In addition, parents can turn off chats with each individual character to control more closely and receive information about the topics that adolescents are discussing.
Meta said it will roll out these features on Instagram early next year, initially in English in the US, UK, Canada and Australia.
In a post by Instagram director Adam Mosseri and Meta AI Alexandr Wang, the company emphasized: We understand that parents are interested in safe Internet use for their children and are committed to providing useful tools to make things easier, especially with new technologies like AI.
Meta also announced that AI content and experiences for adolescents follow PG-13 ratings, avoiding sensitive topics such as extreme violence, sex and drug use.
Teens are only allowed to interact with a certain number of characters according to the principle of age-appropriate content.
In addition, parents can set a limit on interaction time, while Instagram uses AI to detect age declarations to circumvent age limits.
In recent weeks, many platforms such as OpenAI, Meta and YouTube have launched control tools to protect adolescents.
These changes come amid growing concerns about the impact of social media and AI on children's mental health, and before the lawsuits accusing AI companies of contributing to suicide in adolescents.
