Meta announced that it is temporarily suspending teenagers' access to its AI characters across all its platforms worldwide. The company said that this move does not mark the end of its efforts, but that it wants to develop an updated version of AI characters specifically for teenage users.
Why is Meta blocking AI characters for teenagers?
The change will take effect in the coming weeks and will affect all Meta apps, including Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp. The company emphasized that the decision came after hearing from parents who wanted more information and control over their children's interactions with AI characters.
Sophie Vogel, a Meta spokesperson, explained the situation as follows: "Since we announced our plans in October to create parental controls for AI characters, we have begun developing a new iteration of AI characters in general, for both adults and teenagers. Rather than creating parental controls twice - for the current AI characters and for the new iteration of AI characters - we are suspending teenagers' access to the current version while we focus on the new iteration."
Teenagers will still be able to use the Meta AI assistant with default age-appropriate safeguards, but they will not be able to interact with individual AI characters.
How does Meta identify minors?
Meta will identify teenagers based on the age users provided when registering. In addition, the company will use its AI-based age prediction technology to detect users who claim to be adults but are actually likely to be minors.
In an updated blog post, the company said: "Starting in the coming weeks, teenagers will no longer be able to access AI characters across our apps until the updated version is ready. This will apply to anyone who has provided us with a date of birth indicating they are a minor, as well as people who claim to be adults but whom we suspect are teenagers based on our age prediction technology."
New version with parental controls
When Meta launches the new AI characters, they will have built-in parental controls. The company said that the new characters will provide age-appropriate responses and stick to topics such as education, sports, and hobbies.
In October, Meta previewed parental controls for AI characters that allow parents and guardians to monitor topics and block access to certain characters. Meta said at the time that parents would be able to completely disable chats with AI characters. These features were supposed to launch this year, but the company is now disabling AI characters for teenagers entirely while it updates them to a newer version.
Political and legal pressure on Meta
The move comes as Meta and its competitors face intense political scrutiny over the potential harm these AI characters may cause children. In October, U.S. senators introduced the GUARD Act, a bipartisan bill to protect teenagers from harmful interactions with AI chatbots. The legislation would ban AI companions for minors, require AI chatbots to disclose their nonhuman status, and impose penalties on companies that create AI for minors that solicits or produces sexual content.
Senator Josh Hawley, the bill's sponsor, argues that chatbots develop "relationships with children through fake empathy" and "encourage suicide." He added that Congress "has a moral obligation to establish clear rules to prevent further harm from this new technology."
Earlier this month, Character.ai and Google settled a lawsuit that accused one of Character.ai's chatbots of contributing to the self-harm or suicide of several minors. Character.AI was founded by former Google engineers, so Google was added to the case as a co-creator because it rehired those engineers and signed a licensing agreement with Character.AI in 2024.
AI companies and their AI characters
Meta is not the only company adjusting its services for teenage users. In October, Character.AI, a startup that allows users to chat with various AI avatars, banned open-ended chatbot conversations for users under the age of 18. In November, the startup said it would create interactive stories for children. In recent months, OpenAI has added new safety rules for teenagers to ChatGPT and begun predicting users' ages so it can apply content restrictions.
It is worth noting that Meta has previously withdrawn its AI character offerings. Less than a year after introducing AI celebrities based on Kendall Jenner, Snoop Dogg, and Tom Brady, they were removed. Meta also introduced parental control features on Instagram in October that focus on tailoring teenagers' experience of interacting with AI across its apps. These features, which were inspired by the PG-13 film rating, restricted teenagers' access to certain topics, such as extreme violence, nudity, and graphic drug use.
The company said that it plans to listen to its user community and gather feedback once it begins rolling out new versions of AI characters with parental controls in the coming months.
Sources: theverge.com, pcmag.com and reuters.com
