Instagram and Facebook have a problem with underage users — there's too many of them. Parent company, Meta, aims to root out under-13s with an age-profiling AI. This plays into a debate about a teenage social media ban.
Shared any birthday photos on social media recently? There had better be enough candles on that cake, otherwise your account could be blocked.
Meta, the tech company behind Facebook and Instagram, plans to use artificial intelligence (AI) to find and remove the profiles of users under the age of 13 years. Thirteen is the minimum age for a person to create an account on the social media platforms.
"We want young people to have safe, positive experiences online," started a press release from Meta in early May when it announced the move.
As part of that effort, the company said, it was always looking for ways to find accounts held by users who should not be on the platforms yet — but who signed up with a false birthdate to make them seem old enough.
