Meta said today that it is suspending teen access to its AI characters globally across all of its apps The company noted that it is not abandoning its efforts but intends to develop an updated version of the AI ​​character for teenagers, the company exclusively told TechCrunch.

The move comes days before a lawsuit against Meta is scheduled to go to trial in New Mexico, accusing the company of failing to protect children from sexual exploitation in its apps. wired reported Thursday that Meta tried to limit findings regarding the effects of social media on teen mental health.

in October, The company previewed parental controls for AI charactersAllows parents and guardians to monitor topics and block access to certain characters Meta said parents will be able to completely turn off chats with AI characters. These features were set for release this year, but the company is now turning off AI characters for teenagers entirely while it updates AI characters to a new version.

Meta said it heard from parents that they wanted more insight and control over their teens’ interactions with AI characters, so decided to make these changes.

The company is cracking down on teenagers’ access to AI content in its apps. Also in October, the meta rolls out Parental control features At Instagram, it focuses on creating experiences for teenagers to interact with AI in its apps. These features, which were inspired by the PG-13 movie rating, limit access to teens to certain topics such as extreme violence, nudity, and graphic drug use.

“Starting next week, teenagers will no longer be able to access AI characters across our app until the updated experience is ready. This will apply to anyone who gave us a teen’s birthday, as well as anyone who claims to be an adult but who we suspect is a teen based on our age prediction technology,” the company said in an updated blog post.

Meta added that when it rolls out new AI characters, they will have built-in parental controls. The company says the new characters will give age-appropriate responses and stick to subjects like education, sports and hobbies.

Social media companies are under intense scrutiny from regulators. In addition to the aforementioned case in New Mexico, Meta Also faces a trial next weekWhere the platform is accused of creating social media addiction CEO Mark Zuckerberg is expected to take the witness stand in that case when the trial begins.

Along with social platforms, AI companies have had to change their experiences for teenagers to face lawsuits for allegedly aiding self-harm. In October, Character.AI, a startup that lets users chat with various AI avatars, disbanded Open conversations with chatbots for users under 18. In November, the startup said it would Create interactive stories for kids. OpenAI has added in the last few months New teen safety rules for ChatGPT and start User age prediction to enforce content restrictions.

Correction: This post has been updated to clarify that the new version of AI characters will be accessible to everyone, not just teenagers, when it launches. This will include parental controls.