More countries are banning social media for teens, which means more age verification technology is on the way. Meta’s got an updated solution heading to its user accounts, and AI is obviously a huge factor. Instagram in the EU (and Brazil) and Facebook in the States will be the first to experience these solutions.
It won’t be quite as simple (or easy to bypass) as a facial scan, but it might be just as concerning. Among the other protective features being launched is improved visual analysis. This system will nab clues from a user’s profile to determine whether they are auto-allocated to a Teen Account.
Meta analysis
The system will grab contextual clues from what a given user posts. Examples from the social media company include mentions of school grades or birthday parties, but the setup could just as easily scan for whatever the popular memetic language is among a given age group at any time. But reading text alone won’t be enough, which is where the visual scans come in.
These will check user photographs. Not for facial data — Meta probably has all of that on file already. Instead, it’ll examine “general themes and visual cues, for example height or bone structure, to estimate someone’s general age.” If the AI says you’re probably a kid, and the rest of the detection lines up, off to the Teen Accounts section you go.
Meta says that this won’t identify the person in the images, just estimate their age. It’s not like the social media giant doesn’t already have enough user data being fired directly at its servers daily. Given how often every other product you use is repurposed for something else, we wouldn’t be surprised to see this rollout being used as training data. At the very least, it’s likely practise for the company’s internal systems.
Still, it’s got a somewhat noble purpose. “By combining these visual insights with our analysis of text and interactions, we can significantly increase the number of underage accounts we identify and remove,” said the company.
Meta’s teen protection efforts are also expanding to Instagram Reels, Instagram Live, and Facebook Groups in the future.
