Instagram's AI: Guarding Young Users

Instagram is utilizing AI technology to verify users' ages, aiming to ensure teenagers are not misrepresenting their age. By converting accounts to teen-specific profiles with stricter privacy settings and content limits, Meta addresses concerns over social media's impact on young users' mental health and well-being.

Instagram has initiated testing on using artificial intelligence to detect whether users lie about their age. Meta Platforms, the parent company, announced this move on Monday, emphasizing the proactive measures in place to identify teenage users who may have input inaccurate birthdates during registration.

The tech giant, known for employing AI to ascertain user ages already, now plans to automatically adjust accounts suspected of age misrepresentation to teen profiles. This change brings additional restrictions, like default privacy settings on accounts, limited private messaging, and reduced exposure to sensitive content. Teenagers will receive notifications for prolonged app use and a sleep mode feature is activated overnight.

Amid rising scrutiny over how social networks affect young peoples' mental health, Meta emphasizes its commitment to safety by using AI to analyze interactions and profiles. They urge app stores to shoulder age verification responsibilities, while also proposing tools for parents to discuss the importance of accurate information with their children online.

(With inputs from agencies.)