Meta has decided to extend technical security measures to European teenagers and American Facebook users.
The Mark Zuckerberg-founded Meta platform will extend safeguards for teen accounts to Facebook in 27 European Union countries and the United States.
The US tech giant said on Tuesday that the new change comes under pressure from regulators to better protect youth online.
Tech companies are facing a challenge from authorities around the world to come up with better age-checking measures largely over growing concerns about online abuse, teen mental health and the spread of AI-generated child sexual images.
Additionally, European countries are pushing to broadly restrict teens’ access to social media, while on Monday the US state of New Mexico asked a judge to declare Meta a public nuisance, fine it $3.7 billion and force its platforms to make changes to protect young users.
Meta introduced technology last year to proactively find accounts it suspects are teens, even if they have an adult’s birthday listed, and place them in teen account protection.
“This technology will be expanded to 27 countries in the European Union. Meta is also expanding this technology to Facebook in the United States for the first time, with the UK and EU to follow in June,” the company said in a blog post.
It also details the use of advanced artificial intelligence to detect underage accounts beyond simple acknowledgment of age.
This includes using AI technology to analyze entire profiles for relevant clues to determine if an account potentially belongs to an underage person and strengthening prevention measures to prevent new accounts from meta suspicious users.
