Instagram is making a big change to keep young users safe. On Monday, Meta announced that it is rolling out its AI-powered age-guessing technology all over the world.

This tool will hunt down teenagers who lie about their age and automatically move them into safer, restricted profiles called "Teen Accounts".Many young users enter fake adult birthdays when creating an account to avoid strict rules. Now, Meta’s AI will actively scan profiles to find people it suspects are teens, even if their listed birthday says they are adults.How the AI guesses a user's real ageTo figure out if a user is a teenager, Meta’s AI looks at their entire profile for hints.

It checks posts, comments, bios, and captions for clues like mentions of school grades or birthday celebrations. The company also uses visual signs from photos and videos, such as checking a person’s height or bone structure.What changes with Teen Accounts?Once the AI spots a teen, their profile is placed into a much stricter experience.

The account is set to private by default, and harmful comments are automatically hidden. Teens will also only receive direct messages from people they already follow or are connected to.

These accounts have built-in time limits, reminding users to close the app after 60 minutes of daily use. They also mute notifications between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. for better sleep.

If a user is under 16, they cannot turn off these strict settings without direct permission from a parent.Why is Meta doing this now?This global rollout happens just months after Meta agreed to a massive settlement in August. The company reached agreements worth up to $18 billion with nearly every U.S. state and territory.

This was to resolve lawsuits from 52 bipartisan attorneys general who claimed that Meta's platforms were harming teenagers. In a recent blog post, Meta said that as part of this agreement, it is investing in stronger technology to catch accounts belonging to children under 13 and safely place older teens into age-appropriate spaces.

To help explain these new protections, Meta will also start showing an in-feed video to parents in the U.S. directly on the Instagram app.Coming to Facebook and ThreadsInstagram is not the only app getting this update. Meta said it is continuing to roll out this same AI age-detection technology on Facebook, and plans to launch a similar global rollout for Threads later this year.- Ends