Meta Platforms plans to temporarily pause access to AI characters across its apps for teenagers worldwide. The ban will be lifted once the company develops an updated version with more parental oversight controls.
“Starting in the coming weeks, teens will no longer be able to access AI characters across our apps until the updated experience is ready,” Meta said in a blog post on the 23rd of January.
During the pause the users will still be able to access Meta’s AI assistant, which maintains built‑in, age‑appropriate protections. Parental oversight tools will apply once the new teen‑specific AI characters launch.
In October 2025, Meta unveiled new tools to help parents view and manage how their children interact with AI on its platforms, which followed a US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) inquiry the previous month on the potential impact of chatbots.
The social media giant stated last year parents could disable their teen’s access to one-on-one chats with AI characters and have the capability to block specific characters without having to turn off all interactions.
Those capabilities were set to release this year, but instead Meta elected to pause access to the AI characters for teens altogether until the newer version is available.
Source: Mobile World Live
Image Credit: Meta
