Meta AI parental supervision now includes reviewing kids’ AI topics
Parents concerned about what their teen is discussing with Meta’s AI assistant will now be able to view conversation topics through a parental supervision tool in the Teen account. Meta announced the feature in a blog post on Thursday.
The information will be available via an Insights tab in the monitoring tool for the Instagram, Facebook and Messenger platforms, all owned by Meta.
The feature lists broader topics, such as school, entertainment, writing, health and wellness. Parents can click on the topic for additional but limited details.
Health and wellness categories, for example, might include fitness, physical health, and mental health. The information only covers the last seven days of trading.
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The feature is the latest security measure Meta has implemented under intense legal and media scrutiny.
Meta recently lost two separate landmark lawsuits related to protecting children’s safety and the allegedly addictive design of its products. The company said it would appeal both verdicts.
The child safety lawsuit, which took place this year in New Mexico, produced internal Meta documents demonstrating that the company’s management knew that its personality-driven AI companions, or “characters,” could engage in inappropriate and sexual interactions and nevertheless initiated them without stricter controls.
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Last August, Meta locked its AI characters aimed at teenage users, following reports that they engaged inappropriately with minors, including discussions of self-harm, suicide and romantic interactions. In October, the company offered parents the ability to turn off one-on-one conversations with AI characters and block specific characters. In January, however, Meta once again restricted teens’ access to the characters as its AI assistant remained available.
A Meta spokesperson confirmed to Mashable that AI characters are being suspended for teens worldwide as the company continues to expand parental controls.
In addition to the latest parental supervision feature, Meta has partnered with the Cyberbullying Research Center to create a list of “conversation starters” about using AI chatbots.
The company also announced the formation of a new AI Wellbeing Expert Council, brought together to provide “ongoing input” into teens’ experiences of AI. Meta said the experts are affiliated with the National Council on Suicide Prevention, the University of Michigan and Northeastern University, among other institutions.
Josh Golin, executive director of Fairplay, a children’s advocacy nonprofit, said in a statement that Meta’s new monitoring feature “once again” puts the onus on parents to monitor their child’s online activity instead of “creating a safe product to begin with.”
Last fall, Fairplay released a report on independent security testing of Meta’s teen accounts. Fairplay said the results indicate that Meta’s security measures are not working as advertised.
The latest feature, Golin said, “does not address the fundamental problem: The primary function of Meta’s chatbots is to manipulate young people into spending more time on the platform by encouraging teens to form unhealthy emotional connections with the bots.”
Additional reporting by Chase DiBenedetto.
UPDATED: April 23, 2026, 9:24 a.m. PDT This story has been updated with a statement from Fairplay.
