Instagram uses AI to detect teens lying about their age and automatically switch to restricted accounts

According to a new report from Bloomberg, Meta will use AI to predict the ages of Instagram users and automatically switch anyone under 18 to a teen account if the tool believes they are lying about their age.

Following a nationwide outcry over the impact of social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook on teen mental health, Meta introduced teen accounts in September. Teen accounts for kids ages 13 to 17 have built-in limits on who they can contact and what content they can view. They are automatically set to hide potentially offensive comments and message requests.

Teen-safe accounts will only work if people under 18 voluntarily use them or are honest about their age, which is why Meta has come up with a way to enforce appropriate accounts. A proprietary software tool Meta has developed, called an 'adult classifier,' will go live next year and is designed to categorize users into two groups: Under or over 18. The tool will scan users' profiles, the content they interact with, and their follower lists to determine their age, according to Allison Hartnett, Meta's director of product management for teens and social impact. Even innocuous "happy birthday" messages can be used to help determine a user's true age.

Because teen accounts are new and currently voluntary, there are a large number of teen users on Instagram who still use regular adult accounts. Meta plans to start moving teens who have voluntarily provided their age information to the new teen accounts very soon and introduce the 'adult classifier' early next year.

• Instagram and Messenger block people under 18 from receiving messages from strangers

The move is Meta's latest attempt to address some of the public backlash over social media's impact on teens. In 2021, a report published in The Wall Street Journal found that Meta's reporting indicated that it knew Instagram was harmful to the mental health of teens, especially teenage girls. "We make body image issues worse for one in three teenage girls ," a slide from Meta's own 2019 report said.