{"id":261061,"date":"2026-01-24T05:32:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T05:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/261061\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T05:32:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T05:32:08","slug":"meta-pauses-teens-access-to-ai-characters-on-instagram-and-whatsapp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/261061\/","title":{"rendered":"Meta pauses teens’ access to AI characters on Instagram and WhatsApp"},"content":{"rendered":"

Meta is halting teens\u2019 access to artificial intelligence characters<\/a>, at least temporarily, the company said in a blog post Friday.<\/p>\n

Meta Platforms Inc., which own Instagram and WhatsApp, said that starting in the \u201ccoming weeks,\u201d teens will no longer be able to access AI characters \u201cuntil the updated experience is ready\u201d <\/p>\n

This applies to anyone who gave Meta a birthday that makes them a minor, as well as \u201cpeople who claim to be adults but who we suspect are teens based on our age prediction technology.\u201d<\/p>\n

The move comes the week before Meta \u2014 along with TikTok and Google\u2019s YouTube \u2014 is scheduled to stand trial in Los Angeles over its apps\u2019 harms to children. <\/p>\n

Teens will still be able to access Meta\u2019s AI assistant, just not the characters. <\/p>\n

Other companies have also banned teens from AI chatbots amid growing concerns about the effects of artificial intelligence conversations on children. Character.AI announced its ban<\/a> last fall. That company is facing several lawsuits over child safety, including by the mother of a teenager who says the company\u2019s chatbots pushed her teenage son<\/a> to kill himself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Meta is halting teens\u2019 access to artificial intelligence characters, at least temporarily, the company said in a blog…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":261062,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,9712,218,219,72,11195,27578,176,13154,1595,61,173,60,2393,127035,58,80,2213,1596],"class_list":{"0":"post-261061","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-alphabet","10":"tag-artificial-intelligence","11":"tag-artificialintelligence","12":"tag-business","13":"tag-domestic-news","14":"tag-email-and-messaging","15":"tag-finance","16":"tag-finance-business","17":"tag-general-news","18":"tag-ie","19":"tag-inc","20":"tag-ireland","21":"tag-meta-platforms","22":"tag-send-to-apple-news","23":"tag-social-media","24":"tag-technology","25":"tag-teens","26":"tag-u-s-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}