Meta’s new plan to protect kids involves AI-scanning their faces and bone structure. It’s not safety; it’s a biometric strip search for Instagram.
Zuck has a new way to check your age: he wants to scan your bones. Well, specifically your facial structure. Meta is leaning into AI-powered age estimation to verify users because nothing says online safety like a social media giant building a biometric map of a child’s face.
The irony is thick.
To safeguard kids from the internet, Meta is forcing them into a digital strip search. If a teen tries to dodge the new, restrictive “Teen Accounts,” Instagram might demand a video selfie. That video is then sent to an AI model to judge their maturity based on the user’s jawline.
It’s invasive, creepy, and most likely broken.
We already know AI is historically terrible at reading faces that aren’t white and male. Now Meta is betting a child’s digital life on whether an algorithm thinks their cheekbones “look” 13. When the AI gets it wrong (and it will), kids are either unfairly locked out or left exposed.
It’s more about legal cover than guardianship.
A dozen states are currently suing Meta for being a public nuisance. This AI bone-reading stunt is a PR move designed to tell regulators, “Look! We’re doing something!” It’s a distraction from the fact that their platforms are built to be addictive dopamine traps.
Instead of fixing the predatory algorithms, they’re putting a biometric padlock on the door. We are conditioning an entire generation to accept that constant surveillance is the price of admission for social life.
If Meta actually cared about kids, they’d change the business model. But they won’t. It’s much cheaper to scan your skeleton and label it safe.
