Meta shared more information on how he plans to use artificial intelligence to catch teenagers lying about their ages on Instagram. as reported for the first time Bloombergearly next year, the company will implement an “adult classifier” that will identify users under 18 and automatically apply Instagram’s more restrictive privacy settings.
According to Allison Hartnett, Meta’s director of product management for youth and social impact, the app will look at metrics like the accounts a user follows and the content they regularly interact with. If the tool suspects someone is under 18, it will transfer them to a teen account, regardless of what age they claim to be on their profile.
Meta did not immediately respond to Engadget’s request for comment.
Meta said it would first use artificial intelligence to identify younger users who lied about their age when it started spreading. teenage accounts in September. With these accounts, the company automatically applies Instagram’s strictest privacy settings to children under 16. For example, accounts are automatically considered private and they can’t text strangers. Faced with pressure from lawmakers and parents, Meta already applied many of these restrictions to underage users prior to the launch of teen accounts, but with the official launch of the feature, the company has made it so that teens can’t change these settings without someone else’s permission. parent
On Monday, the company did not say how accurate the adult classification tool is at determining a person’s age. Meta said Bloomberg although the social media giant is still working out what that process will look like, it will eventually allow people who have been misidentified by the software to reach out.
The company will appeal to teenagers who try to manually change the age on their account to prove their identity. Users will have the option to either upload an official government-issued ID or share a video selfie on Yoti. Meta previously partnered with Yoti to bring age verification Facebook dating. The company’s machine learning algorithm estimates a person’s age based on facial features. After Yoti shares her guess with Meta, they both delete the video.
The adult classification program is part of Meta’s broader effort to make it harder for people to lie about their age on Instagram. Separately, the company plans to flag teenagers who try to create a new account using an email address associated with an existing account and a different birthday. It also plans to use device identifiers to get a better idea of who created a new profile.
Meta recently joined Google and TikTok owner ByteDance could not convince A US federal judge has dismissed a series of lawsuits alleging the companies failed to adequately protect young users from the harmful and addictive effects of social media use.
