Parents will soon be able to supervise their kids and keep an eye on their inclinations with the help of new supervision tools from Meta. With the new addition, parents will be able to ask Meta about topics their teen kids have shown interest in or asked about online on Facebook, Messenger, or Instagram.
Parents will be able to see a new “Insights” tab within the supervision hub, showing the topics that their teen has been discussing with the AI chatbot.
The update is now available in the US, UK, Australia, Canada, and Brazil, and will soon roll out globally in a few weeks. Meta had previewed these insights back in October when it said it was developing new tools to help parents guide their teens through AI. Meta has showcased a few other tools as well; these would have helped parents block access to specific AI characters or disable them entirely.
However, in January, Meta suspended teens’ access to its AI characters globally across all its apps, saying it planned to develop a specific version for teens. These interactive AI personas, each with a distinct personality, are designed for users to engage with as if they were real people. Some of them were modelled after celebrities, such as Snoop Dogg.
These characters were suspended before Meta was facing accusations of failing to protect minors on its platforms. Meta halted access to the AI characters and is now looking to inform parents about what their child has been discussing with the Meta AI chatbot.
Meta will also be giving parents a series of conversation starters, as announced on Wednesday, to help them talk openly and without judgment about their experiences with AI. Beyond that, Meta has also announced it will launch a new Wellbeing Expert Council to help develop its AI products for teens.
