Meta is temporarily blocking teenagers from accessing its AI characters. The pause, which affects Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp, is set to take effect in “the coming weeks.”
In an updated blog post, Meta says that AI characters for teens will return once the company has updated the experience and added improved controls for parents. It will look at the age provided by the user and also use its AI-based age-prediction technology to ensure teens aren’t interacting with the characters. Teens will still be able to access Meta’s AI assistant, with default, age-appropriate protections in place.
Character.ai enforced comparable restrictions in November, blocking teens from engaging in open-ended conversations with characters. Meanwhile, OpenAI’s ChatGPT rolled out tools this week to detect teens’ actual ages and prevent them from accessing inappropriate content.
The move comes as Meta and its rivals face strong political scrutiny over the potential harms these AI characters can pose to children. In October, US senators introduced the GUARD Act, a bipartisan bill to protect teens from harmful interactions with AI chatbots. It would ban AI companions for minors, force AI chatbots to disclose their non-human status, and introduce penalties for companies that make AI for minors that solicits or produces sexual content.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo), the bill’s sponsor, alleges that chatbots are developing “relationships with kids using fake empathy” and “encouraging suicide,” adding that Congress “has a moral duty to enact bright-line 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 multiple teens’ self-harm or death by suicide. Character.AI was founded by former Google engineers, so Google was added as a co-creator to the case since it rehired those engineers and signed a licensing agreement with Character.AI in 2024.
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Meanwhile, OpenAI and Meta are facing similar lawsuits from the families of teenagers.
We’ve seen Meta roll back its AI character offerings before. Less than a year after it introduced AI celebrities based on Kendall Jenner, Snoop Dogg, and Tom Brady, they were removed.
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I’ve been a PC gamer since you had to install games from multiple CD-ROMs by hand. As a reporter, I’m passionate about the intersection of tech and human lives. I’ve covered everything from crypto scandals to the art world, as well as conspiracy theories, UK politics, and Russia and foreign affairs.
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