Meta announced on 10 November that it was extending its AI age-estimation technology worldwide, including to Instagram in Hong Kong. It said millions of teenagers would receive Instagram Teen Account protections.
Meta says some teenagers enter an adult birth date to access experiences for which they are too young. Its AI can identify users it suspects are teenagers despite an adult date of birth, and automatically place them under the protections.
The company said it was continuing to roll out the technology on Facebook and expected to introduce a similar feature globally on Threads later in 2026.
Teen Accounts on Instagram, Facebook and Messenger automatically limit who can contact young users, the content they see and the time they spend on the apps, according to Meta.