How’s META keeping teenagers safe online?
META explained its age verification process and safety features during the government's Joint Select Committee on Social Media and Australian Society.
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00:00As part of our efforts to provide age-appropriate experiences, we take a multilayered approach to understanding someone's age.
00:08We require users to provide their date of birth when they register new accounts, a tool called an age screen.
00:16Those who enter their age under 13 are not allowed to sign up.
00:20The age screen is age-neutral.
00:22In other words, the options offered do not assume that someone is old enough to use our service,
00:28and we restrict people who repeatedly try to enter different birthdays into the age screen.
00:33We've been investing in and developing AI age estimation tools.
00:38While this technology is evolving and is far from perfect, it plays an important role in the safeguards we provide,
00:44and we continue to try to improve its efficacy.
00:48In addition to AI, we have teams reviewing reported accounts that appear to be used by people who are underage
00:55and also can place checks on accounts that appear underage in the course of the normal content review.
01:01If these people are unable to meet our minimum age requirements, we delete their accounts.
01:08Where we require age verification, for example, if a teen tries to age up on our platform,
01:14we use a wide menu of options to verify age.
01:20It allows users to do so by submitting ID documents or uploading a video selfie for face-based age prediction,
01:30which is done through Yodi.
01:32That is a third-party vendor based out of the U.K. which provides privacy-preserving age estimation services.
01:39Our focus on age insurance enables us to provide specific protections for those under the age of 18.
01:46These safeguards include defaulting new teen accounts to private, preventing adults over 18 from starting a private conversation
01:55on Instagram DM and Messenger with a teen who is not already connected with them,
02:00limiting the discoverability of a teen's account, age gating for sensitive content that we may allow on our platform
02:07for public interest, newsworthiness, or free expression value, but may be disturbing or sensitive for young users.
02:15In addition to removing content that violates our policies, we also aim to make it harder for teens to see potentially sensitive content.
02:23For example, we have a sensitive content control that's defaulted to the most restrictive setting for people under the age of 18.
02:32We also limit advertisers' ability to reach young people.
02:36We only allow advertisers to target ads to people under 18 based on their age and geography.