Meta is adding more parental controls for teen AI use

After enthusiastically rolling AI chatbots out everywhere, Meta has announced new options for parents to get an idea of how teens are chatting with the digital characters and set some limits on use. The move comes as Meta works to rehabilitate its image after disturbing reports of its tools’ romantic interactions with minors and faces growing scrutiny over chatbots’ impact on kids.

The new controls will let parents stop their children from speaking with AI chatbots entirely or block access to specific characters they don’t like, Instagram lead Adam Mosseri and Meta chief AI officer Alexandr Wang wrote in a blog post announcing the changes on Friday. Meta’s AI assistant is a notable exception to this rule. The company says it will “remain available to offer helpful information and educational opportunities” with “age-appropriate protections in place.”

Meta said parents will also be given some form of “insight” into how their kids are using AI, though it was light on details for what this might look like in practice. From Meta’s description, it looks like the “insights” will take the form of a high-level summary of “the topics their teens are chatting about with AI characters” and Meta’s AI assistant. The company says it hopes the information will empower parents to “have thoughtful conversations with their teens about AI interactions.” 

Mosseri and Wang said they “hope today’s updates bring parents some peace of mind that their teens can make the most of all the benefits AI offers.” Parents will have to wait a little longer to discover said peace of mind though: the controls won’t be available until “early next year.” Even then, they will be limited to Instagram and only for English-speaking users in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia. Meta said it plans to expand the controls across its platforms in the future and said it will “have more to share soon.”  

This is one of the first major safety updates Meta has made to its AI chatbots since deploying them across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. It comes on the heels of another major update pushed only this week that limits what content teen Instagram accounts can view, in line with what you’d see in a PG-13 movie.