Meta Pauses Teen Access to Its AI Chatbot Characters

Meta has ceased allowing teenagers to engage with its AI chatbot personas. The social media behemoth announced on January 23 that it is developing new versions of these personas to offer users a "superior experience."

An update to a safety-themed blog post, originally published last October, stated: "While we focus on building new versions, we are pausing teens' access to the existing AI personas globally."

Concerns regarding the safety of AI chatbots continue to mount, even as Meta works on new software.

In October of last year, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) revealed it was investigating how seven companies, including Meta, measure and assess the negative impacts of their bots on young people.

Last December, a coalition of U.S. state attorneys general sent letters to 13 major AI players, including Meta, suggesting they need to do more to prevent harmful conversations with children, citing examples of murder, suicide, and domestic violence cases apparently influenced by AI outputs.

Meanwhile, in New Mexico, Meta faces a lawsuit set to begin in February, alleging it enables child exploitation across its platforms. While this case isn't specifically about AI bots, reports indicate the company has sought to avoid mentioning them during proceedings—highlighting Meta's sensitivity to criticism in this area.

Given these developments, Meta's decision to restrict access to these AI personas is unsurprising, framed as "prioritizing teen safety."

The company stated: "Starting in the coming weeks, teens will no longer be able to access AI personas in our apps until the updated experience is ready. This applies to everyone who has set their birthday as a teen for us, as well as those who claim to be adults but our age prediction technology suspects are teens."

This move escalates measures announced last October when Meta introduced controls allowing parents to see how their children interact with AI and to block chats entirely.

This action follows a Reuters report on a leaked internal Meta policy document showing the company tolerated many AI bot responses that parents deemed inappropriate.

Meta's steps mirror those of OpenAI, which also introduced parental controls and redirections for sensitive conversations after a wrongful death lawsuit was filed by the family of a teenage ChatGPT user who died by suicide.

Although the company has revoked teen access to Meta's persona AI bots, it clarified that teens can still use its AI assistant for "educational opportunities and helpful information."