Starting next year, Instagram will bring parental controls, allowing parents to prevent teens from chatting with AI characters.
With the explosive rise of AI chatbots, Meta has announced new parental controls that will allow parents to monitor how teens interact with these digital characters and set limits on their usage. The move comes as Meta works to repair its image following troubling reports about its tools’ interactions with minors. At the same time, the company faces increased scrutiny over the impact of chatbots on children.
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The new controls will allow parents to completely block their children’s conversations with AI chatbots or limit access to specific characters they don’t approve of. Instagram CEO Adam Mosseriand Meta’s chief AI officer Alexandr Wangshared the updates in a post . Notably, Meta’s AI assistant will remain available to provide useful information and educational opportunities, with age-appropriate protections in place.
Meta also said that parents will receive some form of “briefing” about their kids’ AI use, though details of what that might entail were limited. It appears that these briefings will consist of a summary of the topics teens are discussing with AI characters and Meta’s AI assistant. The company hopes this information will help parents engage in meaningful conversations with their teens about interactions with AI.
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Instagram: Parental controls for safe use of AI
Mosseri and Wang expressed hope that these updates will provide parents with peace of mind about their teens’ engagement with AI. However, parents will have to wait until “early next year” for these controls to be implemented. Initially, they will only be available on Instagram and limited to English-speaking users in the US, UK, Canada and Australia. Meta plans to expand these controls across all of its platforms in the future and will provide more information soon.
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This is one of Meta's first major security updates for its AI chatbots since they were deployed on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. It comes on the heels of another major update released this week that restricted content accessible to teen accounts on Instagram.
