Parents of teens will control access to AI chat bots after Meta announced new supervision tools
The countdown to Australia’s world-leading social media ban for children is on as regulators, parents, educators and platforms prepare for the upcoming rule changes.
From December 10, companies must take reasonable steps to find underage users and stop under-16s accessing the social platforms, as well as provide an accessible complaints process for users.
Tech giants face fines of up to $50 million if they do not comply.
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By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.Meta, the company founded and led by Mark Zuckerberg, which owns platforms Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and Threads will introduce artificial intelligence supervision tools for parents from early-2026.
Parents will be able to turn off their children’s access to one-on-one chats with AI characters on Meta’s platforms completely, set time limits for interactions and see what topics they are chatting to them about.
“AI is evolving rapidly, which means we are going to need to constantly adapt and strengthen our protections for teens, while listening and responding to concerns parents have about this new technology,” a company statement issued on Saturday said.
“We hope today’s updates bring parents some peace of mind that their teens can make the most of all the benefits AI offers, with the right guardrails and oversight in place.”
The changes will be rolled out to the United States, England, Canada and Australia.
With the upcoming ban for children, they will only apply to parents of 16- and 17-year-olds in Australia.
The company also announced this week it had updated AI experiences for teens to be guided by the PG-13 movie rating system, to prevent minors accessing inappropriate content.
