Meta expands AI teen age detection to Facebook and Threads

Meta flipped the switch Monday on a wider rollout of its AI age-estimation tool, which uses visual and contextual analysis to sniff out users it suspects are teens — even when they punch in an adult birthday — and drops them into Teen Account protections. Meta says the system has already steered millions of teens worldwide into age-appropriate experiences, and calls the results encouraging.

Facebook gets the technology now. Threads follows globally later this year. Meta frames the expansion as part of commitments tied to its agreement with 52 bipartisan attorneys general across US states, territories and the District of Columbia.

That deal, struck in August, cost Meta $18 billion plus a slate of teen-protection changes: time limits, notification blackouts during school hours and overnight, and the ability for teens to set a non-algorithmic feed as their default. Settling kept the case out of a courtroom where social media's harms to kids would have been on full display.

Australia offers the reality check. Meta says it removed more than 750,000 profiles it flagged as belonging to teen users under the country's social media ban for under-16s, which took effect in December 2025. But an August report from Australia's eSafety Commission found 81.5% of underage users still got into restricted apps — meaning detection isn't the wall Meta claims, or teens are simply finding ways around it.

Also Monday, Meta added an Australia-only signal: Apple's age-range data. When a parent sets up a smartphone, the app store can confirm the user's age and assign a range, which Apple then passes to developers like Meta each time the teen downloads an app. Meta says it's using that information voluntarily and repeated its call for app stores to own age verification at the download level.

Meta also lobbed the ball at its rivals, urging TikTok and YouTube to adopt the same practices while it invests in stronger technology to catch accounts belonging to children under 13. Social Media Today notes the company appears eager to get in front of regulators — and that it probably wouldn't be moving this fast without the attorneys general breathing down its neck.