Meta expands AI age-guessing on Instagram to catch lying teens

Meta is deploying artificial intelligence to scan Instagram profiles worldwide and catch users who lie about their age. The social media giant uses this technology to uncover people it suspects are teenagers, even if their profile lists an adult birthday. Once flagged, these users face stricter account safeguards, including default privacy settings and restricted direct messages.

The system relies on profile clues rather than official identification documents. The mechanism works by analyzing text across bios, captions, and comments for mentions of school grades or birthday celebrations. Meta also scans visual cues in photos and videos, such as height and bone structure, to infer a user's age.

This global rollout follows legal pressure, including settlements worth up to $18 billion with U.S. states to resolve allegations that platform features harm minors. Our read is that biometric profile scanning shifts compliance burdens onto algorithmic guesswork rather than mandatory ID verification. Watch whether regulators accept algorithmic estimations as a valid fix for underage account access.