Meta Adds Parental Control After Its AI Chatbot Is Considered Genit With Teenagers

JAKARTA - Meta Platforms Inc., Facebook's parent company and Instagram, announced it will give greater control to parents over their teenage children's interactions with artificial intelligence-based chatbots (AI), after drawing sharp criticism for the genit'' behavior of the bot.

Starting early next year, the new feature will roll out on Instagram for users in the United States, UK, Canada and Australia, according to a blog post written by Instagram Head Adam Mosseri and AI Head Meta Alexandr Wang.

With this update, parents can turn off private conversation features between teens and AI characters, as well as block certain chatbots. They can also view the general topics their child talks about with Meta chatbots and the company's AI assistants without having to disable all AI access.

Even so, Meta insists that its main AI assistant is still available with age-appropriate settings, even if private chats with AI characters are turned off.

The move comes after last week Meta announced that the AI experience for teens will be set according to PG-13 film standards, in order to prevent access to inappropriate content.

Meta is currently under the intense scrutiny of US regulators, who are increasingly concerned about the negative impact AI chatbots have on minors. A Reuters report in August 2025 revealed that the Meta AI system allows provocative conversations with teenage users.

Meta insists the new surveillance feature builds on a pre-existing layer of protection for teenage accounts, including the use of AI signals to automatically flag suspicious accounts owned by teens, even if they claim to be adults.

However, an investigative report last September found that many Instagram security features were not functioning properly, some were even just formality.

Meta also emphasizes that its chatbots are designed not to address sensitive topics such as suicide, eating disorders, or self-harm with teenage users.

Meta's move follows OpenAI's move, which last month launched a parental control feature for ChatGPT after facing a lawsuit from a teenager's family who died as a result of alleged malicious guidance from the chatbot.

Meta's efforts marked a new chapter in the social media industry's fight between AI innovation and the psychological protection of young users, where the boundaries of technological ethics are now increasingly in the global public spotlight.