Meta Blocks Teens From Messaging Its AI Characters
▼ Summary
– Meta is temporarily blocking teens from chatting with its AI characters while it develops a new version intended to provide a better experience.
– The company is pausing teen access to avoid building parental controls twice, first for the current AI characters and again for the new iteration.
– This change follows feedback from parents who wanted more insight and control over their teens’ interactions with these AI characters.
– Meta had previously announced parental controls, including the ability to block specific AI conversations and share discussion insights, planned for early this year.
– The update also references a prior October change to Instagram teen accounts regarding age-appropriate content visibility.
Meta has announced a temporary halt on teenagers’ ability to interact with its AI-powered characters. The company states this pause is necessary while it develops a new, improved version of these digital personas. This updated iteration will be designed for both adults and younger users, and Meta plans to reintroduce teen access once the new system is ready, complete with integrated parental controls. The change is set to take effect in the coming weeks.
The decision stems from feedback the company received. According to reports, parents expressed a desire for greater oversight and management over their teens’ engagements with these AI entities. This led Meta to prioritize building a more robust system from the ground up, rather than applying temporary fixes to the existing framework.
A company spokesperson explained the reasoning behind the temporary block. Developing parental controls for the current AI characters and then again for a completely new version would be inefficient. By pausing teen access now, the engineering team can concentrate all efforts on creating the next-generation experience, which will have built-in supervision tools from the start.
This move follows an announcement made by Meta last October, where it detailed upcoming features to give parents more authority. Those planned controls included the ability to prevent one-on-one chats between teens and AI characters, block specific characters entirely, and provide parents with summaries of the topics their children discuss with Meta’s AI. The original timeline aimed for an early 2024 rollout, but the development of a wholly new system has altered those plans.
The company has recently made other adjustments to its platforms concerning younger users. Last fall, Meta also modified Instagram’s settings for teen accounts. The change allowed teenagers to encounter content more aligned with what might appear in a film rated for audiences aged 13 and older, reflecting an ongoing effort to tailor experiences for different age groups.
(Source: The Verge)
