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- [00:00]
Podcast Announcer
Foreign. The following podcast is a Dear Media production.
- [00:12]
Host 1
Hello and welcome back to your favorite podcast. D influenced guys. We just had.
- [00:19]
Podcast Announcer
It was just a wild ride around here.
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Host 2
Wild ride.
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Host 1
We had the cool guest. We had the coolest guest with the coolest job and.
- [00:26]
Host 2
And the coolest name, Antigone.
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Host 1
So we had Antigone Davis on. She is Meta's global head of safety and she was here to tell us all about Meta's teen accounts, which I didn't even know that was a thing because I obviously don't have a teenager yet, but I do have three small children that I know one are going to want to get on the Internet one day. I mean, Summit's over here already trying to grab my phone, which kind of freaks me out a little bit.
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Host 2
Yeah, we were raised on the streets of MySpace.
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Host 1
Yeah, the streets of MySpace.
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Host 2
I'm telling you, they were not shaped like Meadows.
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Host 1
They were not that top eight. It killed me. I still have nightmares about it.
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Host 2
I wasn't on any.
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Host 1
On any.
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Host 2
No, I think I was on a couple.
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Host 1
No, be honest. Were you not?
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Host 2
I don't remember, but I.
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Host 1
But that's why I think we're so humbled.
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Host 2
I don't think I was ever number one on anyone's. Which is tough.
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Host 1
That's always hard. I wasn't either.
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Host 2
Yeah. Were you not?
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Host 1
No.
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Host 2
You're class president, though.
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Host 1
Yeah. But, you know, like, I was, like, liked by everybody, but, like, not loved.
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Host 2
I get it. You know, liked but not know.
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Host 1
I was like. Yeah. Like, I was friends with everyone, but not best friends with anyone.
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Host 2
Totally. Gosh. We played our strategy, so I know I did.
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Host 1
That's why I played it totally different in college. I was like, I'm just gonna have five friends.
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Host 2
Yeah.
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Host 1
And then I kind of limited myself. So it's like, you know, it's a.
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Podcast Announcer
Lot of balance in life.
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Host 2
Thank God. Thank God MySpace is gone.
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Host 1
Yeah. Thank goodness. Well, just a little bit of information for our listeners about what these teen accounts are. Meta has begun expanding teen accounts to Facebook and Messenger. Teen accounts on Facebook and Messenger will offer similar automatic protections to address unwanted contact, sensitive content and time spent. Meta actually started these teen accounts on Instagram in 2024. As they continue to expand teen accounts, Mehta wants to make sure as many teens as possible are enrolled. Instagram is notifying parents with information about the importance of their teens and providing the correct ages online and tips to check and confirm their teens ages altogether. Instagram is also beginning to test AI technology in the US that will proactively find accounts they suspect belong to teens, even if the account lists an adult birthday and place them in teen account settings.
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Podcast Announcer
Ooh.
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Host 1
So you guys better watch out. They're coming for you teenagers out there.
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Host 2
Let's jump into this conversation with Antigone Davis.
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Host 1
So we'll just hop right into the questions, if that's cool. Okay, first of all, it's Antigone, correct?
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Podcast Announcer
Yes. Although people call me Tiggy, so if that's easier, please.
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Host 2
Oh, I was just getting used to Antigone.
- [02:58]
Podcast Announcer
You can do either.
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Host 2
That's the best. That's the best name. I've never met someone with a name Antigone.
- [03:03]
Podcast Announcer
It's Greek. I'm not Greek, but all the kids in my family are named after characters from a book or a play, so. And I was born in the 60s, way older than you guys, so I could have been something really crazy. That's.
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Host 1
Are you an aunt, by chance? Like, do you have, like.
- [03:20]
Podcast Announcer
I am, and I'm called Aunt Tiggy.
- [03:22]
Host 1
Aunt Tiggy. That is such a great aunt name. Aunt Tiggy.
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Host 2
Your parents really set you up for success.
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Host 1
They really did.
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Host 2
Are they very, like, educated, studious people?
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Podcast Announcer
You know, it's funny that you said, I think my dad, he's now 92, but I think he would like to think of himself that way. But he actually is in, like, business. Not really.
- [03:42]
Host 1
Well, yeah. Can you tell us more about yourself before we kind of get into the meat and potatoes of this episode?
- [03:47]
Podcast Announcer
Sure. I'm kind of boring, so. Well, I think maybe relevant to stuff that we'll talk about today. I have a law degree. I practice law for a very short period of time. I only think it's, like, relevant because it helps me think about frameworks for making rules and setting up things in a way that work really well for everybody. I am a teacher, so I haven't taught in a long time, but I. I did teach middle school and high school, teens, kids, and I'm a mom. I think that's probably pretty important.
- [04:19]
Host 2
How old are your kids, mom?
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Podcast Announcer
Oh, she's 27, so she's. She doesn't think of herself as. I mean, she is my kid. She's always my kid, but she doesn't necessarily think of herself that way.
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Host 1
And then when did you start working for Meta?
- [04:32]
Podcast Announcer
It's been 11 years, so I've been there a long time. And really, what I'd say is the way people use our platform has changed so much from when I first started to now. I'll give you actually, a crazy thing. Not from when I started At Meta. But when I was in college, there was no social media, Just in case you're wondering. We actually had a Facebook, like a book that was called the Facebook that had all the headshots of everybody from your class in it. I guess it was like, to help figure out who you'd want to be friends with, who you want to date or whatever that was. And it was called the Facebook?
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Host 1
Yeah. Like a classroom, Like a directory.
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Podcast Announcer
Yeah.
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Host 1
We had everyone's photos. Yeah. Oh, I had that in preschool, too, but I used to call. I would grab my landline and grab. And call all of my friends. Parents.
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Host 2
Yeah, right.
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Podcast Announcer
Preschool. I had college.
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Host 2
Did you ever dabble in MySpace? Do you remember when that came out?
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Podcast Announcer
I did not dabble. That was sort of.
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Host 2
That was like our teenage years. And let me tell you, it was daunting. They had this top friends thing, and if you weren't in it, you were. You were done.
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Host 1
The amount of hours of sleep I lost just from top friends getting removed some from someone's top friends. But yeah, then the Facebook era was also kind of bar era.
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Host 2
That was like college for us.
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Host 1
And then I'm curious, though, how did you go from being a teacher and then getting into Internet safety?
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Podcast Announcer
That's a good question. So I. When my daughter was born, I sort of stepped back from. I taught for a little bit, but then I stepped back and was actually homeschooling her, although it doesn't really feel like homeschooling because it was only until she was about 6. And when I got back into work, I was working for a regulator. So an attorney general, state attorney general. They actually regulate the Internet or enforce rules against people who. In the Internet business. And when I was there, I started working on privacy and safety in the Internet. And that's how I got introduced to Meta. And it's just become. It was. For me, it was like the exact right mix of caring a lot about kids and their experience and their growing up and having this background in privacy and safety and the Internet that developed while I was there and having a law background, it just sort of all came together.
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Host 1
Yeah. Can you run us through your role and then also your mission at Meta now?
- [07:01]
Podcast Announcer
Yeah. So my role, I have a team. We are global. We're all over the. All over the world. And we focus on safety. In particular, the safety of young people on the platform, but other vulnerable people on the platform. And the way I describe it is we focus on do we have the right policies and rules in place for what you can do? And we're going to look at that in relation to teens. Do we have the right technology in the background? So a lot of things that you don't see, but technology that we use to ensure that people feel safe on the platform. Do we have the right tools in the. What you think of the foreground? So what the tools that people use and can set for themselves, are those in the right place? Do we have the right resources and support and information? And are we working with the right people to inform all that work? So we try to take really a 360 degree approach and there are thousands of people at Muda and we are working with each of the teams in those areas to think those things through. And I would say if you ask me what my mission is, I think our platform offers, our services offer a great way to connect and the things that teens use our platform to do, it's kind of incredible and it's really changed in the time that I've been there. We want to make sure that they feel safe and have, you know, have a positive experience and feel, you know, empowered. And I think key to this is actually that their parents feel like it's set, the system is set up in a way to support them, that it has the right safeguards that parents really care about and getting that balance. So my mission now at present is really trying to make sure that we've made it simple and easy for families that parents and teens alike feel good about being on our platform.
- [08:56]
Host 2
As, like the Internet has evolved, you know, because you were a teacher and you've also probably followed this from like a legal perspective. What have been some of the major milestones in like Internet privacy and Internet protection that have happened over the past. You can just say like 11 years that you've been at meta.
- [09:13]
Podcast Announcer
Yeah. I don't know if I can give you all the milestones for the Internet, but I do think there have been, there's been definitely a shift in understanding about privacy. And so initially I think people were very focused on this open environment, which is great. I mean, you now can connect with people who have any kind of interest that you have, no matter how niche and find your people. But how do you do that in a way that doesn't sort of expose you to everything and putting in place the differentiated privacy settings? So, you know, we just launched teen accounts. I think we're going to talk about that a little bit in a little bit. But teen accounts put teens, if you're under the age of 18, into a private by default account on the platform. And that's so that you can kind of manage who you're engaging with. So that means, for example, you have to say yes if someone asks to follow you. If you don't, they can't follow you. If they're not following you, they can't see what you're posting. So I think that's been a big shift. I also think another probably significant milestone and more recently has really been you've seen a lot of platforms start to really try to invite parents into the experience. And so the way teen accounts is set up, for example for us you have these defaults that are set for teens and if a teen wants to change them, they've got to ask their parents permission. And it's a way of kind of inviting them into the experience. And I think a lot of platforms are now looking at doing things that way.
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Host 1
Yeah, I'm really excited to talk to you about Teen Accounts. You know, I, I started doing this YouTube influencing thing back in 2012. I've been doing this for so long now. And so I truly feel like I've kind of grown up on the Internet. When I was 19. I started when I was 19, I was a sophomore in my dorm room, which my frontal lobe was not fully developed at all. And then, you know, I've walked through so many different phases and stages of the Internet and of my life with people online and now having three children, I'm like, I mean, to be honest, it just changes so fast. Like I don't even know how to keep up with what all of the kids are doing. Anytime I meet like an 8 year old, I'm like, what are you into? Like what do you do with your, your free time? And they talk about like Roblox and all these things. I'm like, I don't even know what you're talking about. You know, we used to just play on our Game Boy or whatever it was. And so, so I'm so excited to talk to you about that. And I guess my first question though when it comes to teen accounts was kind of, well, is this something that just now launched and if, when did it launch and what prompted Meta to launch this?
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Host 2
Love that question.
- [11:55]
Podcast Announcer
It, it launched back in 2024 in September. And I think it's been a journey for, for us in terms of understanding how teens are using the platform. And by the way, it does change. So and it's going to keep changing. And that's a part of, of my job is sort of constantly adapting and think and our companies thinking about how these Changes. And in the work that we've been doing, we really wanted to spend some time understanding parents and their engagement because there's a lot of research that shows that the more a parent is involved or responsible adult because not everybody has, you know, a parent that's involved. But the more that a parent is involved, the better experience you generally are going to have. And that kind of makes sense, right? That makes sense in life generally. And so understanding what it was that mattered to parents that parents were worried about. And they told us it's basically who your teen is connecting with, the content that they're engaging with. And sort of, as you could expect, how much time, the amount of time that they're spending on the platform. And what Teen accounts really does is basically looks at those three top concerns and puts the defaults in place so that parents can have peace of mind. So you're in a private account by default. Strictest messaging restrictions. We have a sensitive content control. So it takes, we have policies, but it goes one step further in terms of content. And then I think from my perspective, the thing, one of the things I love the most is that we turn notifications off at night. So between 10pm And I think it's 6 or 7am Notifications are turned off. So that. And the person. If a person tries to contact a teen, it'll say like, this is. I can't remember the exact language is. But this is sort of like sleep time to give them time, time to rest and relax. Which is, as you said, when you're 19, not only is your frontal lobe not fully developed and closed, but you actually need a lot of sleep because your, your brain and your body is still developing. And so making sure that teens have that opportunity to get sleep, I think is important.
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Host 2
I mean, I kind of want to sign up for one of these accounts. It feels like, I mean, I have a full frontal lobe, but this sounds really good for me.
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Podcast Announcer
She might disable.
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Host 1
Disagree with. So I agree with having that parental, that transparency with your child because to be honest, I feel like nowadays it's like parents, like, we're naive and we don't even mean to be. It's just like you just don't even know the possibilities of what your child could find because you don't even know how to find it yourself or that that's even out there. And so that's really interesting to hear what everyone else's concerns are. I'm always concerned about dms, you know, someone messaging my kids are too young. But just in the future you know, an adult messaging my kids, or you never know. Sometimes it's the kids messaging an adult that they admire. Maybe it's a professional athlete or a celebrity or whatever it is. Is there transparency with the messages? Like, can parents see the messages?
- [15:08]
Podcast Announcer
It's a good question. So first of all, I think I scared the life out of my daughter with messages when she first got her phone. She would come every time someone messaged her and be like, can I reach out to this person? I go, do you know them? Like, yeah, but mom, you said, I'm so probably not my best parenting moment. But the way that our supervisory tools work. So we do have supervisory tools for parents. So above and beyond teen accounts, you can set up supervisory tools. And if you set those up as a parent, you can see not the actual, actual text of a message, but you can see who your teen is messaging with and the frequency and which I think is really important for. For a parent, because if you. If you notice a change, say, in your teen's behavior and you see, oh, they've been messaging with this person a lot, this. It gives you a prompt for kind of asking that probing question to maybe help get to the bottom of it and help them sort through it. So you can't see the text of the messages, but you can see with whom they're messaging. If you' supervisory tools turned on, can.
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Host 1
You also see what your teen is searching? Because I find that we kind of use Instagram and Meta or whatever it is as like. It's kind of like our new form of Google figuring out who we want, where we want to go or what we want to learn about or what we're interested in. Can you see, like, search topics?
- [16:32]
Podcast Announcer
So pro tip, you can actually see your teen search history on their phone if you want to. Yeah. But what you can see on our supervisory tools is who your teen is following and who follows your teens. So you can have a really good idea of the kind of content that your team may be engaging with. And I can't remember one of my colleagues, there was something that his team was looking at. I can't remember the name of it, but the name was quite suspicious of the accountant. He asked, and it turned out to be something completely innocuous. But you can see all that so that you can ask those kind of questions.
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Host 2
It sounds like you partnered a lot with parents in developing these tools. Just out of curiosity, did you also partner with the teens? And are they like, this is something I want to be a part of, or, no, I'm Not. I'm not going to be a part of this.
- [17:22]
Podcast Announcer
Well, let me hit that last question first. So what's been really interesting and a bit unexpected on my part is that 97% of teens have stayed in these settings, so they're not interested in changing them. So they want peace of mind, too. I mean, it's a little bit. Your parents, you know, kids might fight you on boundaries a little bit, but they also really want you to set them. So I do think that teens find them useful, and we did talk to teens. The balance here is trying to get that right balance where the safeguards are in place. It gives parents peace of mind, but teens are going to be willing to use them and engage. So with supervisory tools, you were asking about messaging, giving teens parents the ability to see who their teen is. Messaging with that didn't block kids from being interested in supervisory tools, but letting your parents see every single message was a little bit more intrusive for them. So trying to find that right balance.
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Host 1
We go to Snapchat and just use that if our parents saw everything. And so I do, I do understand that.
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Host 2
So it sounds like you guys worked out a middle ground where, like, the teen can still enjoy the product, but the parent can feel that their teen is safe using the.
- [18:37]
Podcast Announcer
The product. I think that, I think that's right. It was maybe a little extra airing on the side of parents.
- [18:42]
Host 2
Right? For sure. For sure.
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Host 1
Can you tell us or talk to us more about cyberbullying? I feel like that's. I've gotten so bullied over the years. I mean, I still.
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Podcast Announcer
Sorry to hear that.
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Host 1
You know, like, I kind of feel like we all have these days. It's like, you know, it's just. It's everywhere now, and it's kind of like everyone is their own influencer and everyone's posting pictures and getting feedback and. But I will say it's always kind of been like a. A hot topic. And so I'm curious what meta, like the teen accounts is doing to kind of combat that.
- [19:16]
Podcast Announcer
Yeah. So. Well, first of all, I think a lot of the privacy restrictions are very helpful in, in that regard. So being able to decide who's going to, you know, giving, saying yes or no to someone following you, having your account private by default sort of gives you an opportunity to kind of create the right circle, you know, a safe circle. But they're also. We have a filter that's called Hidden Words, which is basically designed to remove words that have typically been associated with bullying from your experience. And that filter is Automatically on. In teen accounts. So this is a. And by the way, you can personalize that filter so you can actually put in if you know you're being bullied on a particular issue, because sometimes it could be quite personal and not something that we would know was bullying. You can put in those words to filter that out from your experience.
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Host 1
Oh, I've done it. I'm all over that one.
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Host 2
She's actually, she's on a teen account. We switched her, we switched her last.
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Host 1
Well, actually, speaking of going on a teen account, so to qualify, like you have to put in your. I guess not to qualify, we're acting like it's, like we want to qualify for it now, but you, you have to put in your. Is it just you input your age and do you ever have a problem with teens lying about their age?
- [20:32]
Podcast Announcer
Yeah, the, the, the whole Internet and all the industry has a problem with teens lying about that age. Yes. Yes. So we use your age when you sign up. And if you sign up and you say you're under 18, you're going to go into a teen account. But you're right, there are teens who are going to lie, who are going to try to get around it. So, for example, if a teen is already on our platform and they try to switch to an 18 + account, we're going to ask them to verify their age. So either provide us with some kind of an ID or do that sort of where you look, scan the face for features to determinate age. We also have started to introduce a little bit of artificial intelligence so that we can try to. If someone has lied about their age, after the account's been on for a while, if we can see that they, it looks like they may be lying about their age, we're going to put them into those safeguards. Teen account safeguards. Anyway, that's new. It doesn't. It's not a perfect science. It's AI, what we're learning. And so we're trying to address that issue. It's one of the big challenges for industry broadly and we've been supporting legislation to try to have the App Store provide us with age. Basically require parental approval to download an app if you're under the age of 16 and then share an age signal with us. So over 18, under 18, between 13 and 16. Because there's this moment when you purchase a phone where that information is collected and where you set up the account and you have the parent present and we don't. When someone sets up our, you know, downloads an app, we don't the parent is not necessarily there. The phone's already been handed to the teen. And so we don't know who people's parents are, but they do. So that's another way that we're pushing. I don't know if at all if we'll get that legislation, but we're pushing for that.
- [22:20]
Host 2
What's the push back on that legislation?
- [22:23]
Podcast Announcer
You know, I think there's probably liability concerns. I think you can build into legislation, liability protection for that. I've heard people talk about privacy concerns, but it's certainly more intrusive to ask everybody for their ID multiple times. I mean, kids use. You were saying it before. Oh, I don't, you know, I have no idea. It moves so quickly. But kids use on teens in the US 40 apps. I work in tech. I don't know if I could name 40 apps just off the top of my head, let alone a parent being able to do that.
- [22:57]
Host 2
So, yeah, what are. I mean, truly, I couldn't name 40 apps either.
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Host 1
I know, I know.
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Host 2
I've got like four. It's like the ones that are in my home screen.
- [23:05]
Podcast Announcer
I know.
- [23:05]
Host 1
I'm telling you, we're not with it anymore, man. So is, what is the minimum age requirement for teens?
- [23:13]
Podcast Announcer
So on our platform you have to be 13 and most, I'd say most social media have 13 as, as the starting age. But there's a difference between a 13 year old and a 16 year old or a 17 year old. And that's one of the reasons with teen accounts that if you're under 16, you've got to get your parents permission to change these settings.
- [23:35]
Host 1
So if your 13 year old makes an Instagram account, are you notified or like, how would I know?
- [23:43]
Podcast Announcer
You wouldn't. I mean, that's the problem. And other than your child asking for permission, this is one of the reasons that we're really pushing for this parental approval. Because if, for example, you had parental approval on download, your team would go to download. You've given them a phone. That's great, by the way, the phone. There are 1.5 million apps in the App Store, just so you know. And right now your team can download any of them unless you set up a child account, which you have to kind of search around to do that. But this would basically, anytime they tried to download an app, you'd get a notification and it would say, hey, your teen wants to download this app. You'd have a chance to kind of look at the app, get a sense of whether you're okay with that. And then by doing that, they also would be able to share with us the parent, child relationship and your attestation, for example, of their age. It just starts to create a better environment, I think, for families.
- [24:36]
Host 1
No, for sure. What about when it comes to advertising to teen accounts, how does Meta decide what ads teens see?
- [24:47]
Podcast Announcer
That's a really good question. One thing I just want to say right away is people have this notion that we, that we sell people's data. We don't sell people's data. It just, I feel like that's this weird thing that's developed. It doesn't. We use the data that we have so that advertisers can target ads, but we don't, we don't sell the data. In terms of ads for, for, for teens, we have a lot of normal restrictions that you would expect. So you can't advertise alcohol to teens, you can't advertise tobacco products to teens. But we've actually gone a little bit further than weight loss and diet ads. We don't, even though adults could see those on our platform, we don't serve those. You can't target teens with those types of ads. Just a little bit, A little bit step further for them. Wow, that's pretty cool.
- [25:35]
Host 1
And then so you said, because I think that's another big concern of mine is like the amount of time that my teens would be spending on their phones. And it kind of makes me sad just thinking about, you know, how they could be losing three hours, four hours a day, just caught up on their phones instead of being outside. We recently just got a lake house and it was the best thing we ever. Our kids are so young, but it was like the best thing that we ever did because our kids want to play outside. They're just running from house to house picking up roly polys and, you know, living in the city, it's hard to let your kids just like run outside. And so it kind of just makes me fearful of like, man, how do I keep my kids? You know, I, I know that they have to have a phone. I know that they want to be on social media to communicate with their friends. Like, I get it. I mean, this is what I do for a living, so I understand it. But you said, so when it comes to like time limits, would you say like the best thing that Meta's doing right now are just those, like the notifications or like the, it kind of powers down whenever you're sleeping? Like, can you speak more to just ways we can kind of encourage our, our Kids to not just be like, just lose all their time on social media.
- [26:46]
Podcast Announcer
Yes. First of all, I love Roly polys. I love them as I remember playing with them as a kid.
- [26:52]
Host 1
So does my daughter. Oh my gosh. She collected like 36 the other day in her little. She puts them in her purse, which is so funny.
- [26:59]
Podcast Announcer
It's really cute. Anyway, so in terms of time, in addition to the notifications off at night, we actually in teen accounts, you get a reminder after you've been on the platform for an hour that kind of says, hey, you've been on the platform for an hour.
- [27:13]
Host 1
That's always a little shocking and humbling because you're like, what an hour?
- [27:16]
Podcast Announcer
Oh my God, what did I do? So that's, that's by the way, frontal lobe. It's a way of getting you to use your executive functioning skills and think about your time and how much time and be intentionally conventional about your time. If you set up our supervisory tools, which I would encourage parents to do, you can actually set time limits for your teens. So, you know, some teens, you don't need to set a time limit. They're going to self regulate or they already have a bunch of things that they like to do outside. You don't have to worry about it. Other teens, you might want to put some boundaries around it. You can set as little as 15 minutes of time a day on our platform using those tools. As a parent, in terms of sort of saying to a parent like, what is the one, what's the right amount of time? Because I get that question a lot. I really think it's kid by kid. It really depends on your child. If your teen is an athlete and you know, they play, they play football and they're getting recruited and they're taking videos of the. And they are using that for their recruitment to college, they're going to spend more time on our app than a teen, than someone else. And you might say that time is well spent, that's fine. If your team was like my daughter and there's a lot of scrolling and selfies and stuff that I was like, oh, it's enough, then you may want to be able to cut back on that time. So you want to make sure you give parents the space to do that. But that one hour reminder is a way of reminding teens themselves, like, hey, you've been on for a while. The notifications are designed to help with this, you know, nighttime awareness of your nighttime use. So I don't have a, like a solid, hey, it's just 15 minutes and then get off or hey, it's just an hour. It really depends. But I do think parents should feel comfortable to set a boundary and to say, this is the rule in our house, or we don't use phones at dinner, we're going to put them away and we put them in a basket during. During dinner time. Parents shouldn't think that they've lost that authority. Teens are looking for those boundaries. And by the way, you help set those boundaries also by your own personal example. I have a rather embarrassing story with my own kid where I told her, okay, no phones after 9 o' clock at night. And literally without meeting, like, without missing a beat, she said to me, what do you mean you use your phone in the bed at night? So I had to start putting my phone down. It was, you know. They humble you?
- [29:52]
Host 1
Oh, they really do. They keep tracks.
- [29:54]
Host 2
Have there been any features that you guys have kind of tested within this teen platform that you think that you guys will roll out to like, the adult platform too?
- [30:04]
Podcast Announcer
That's a good question. You know, I think parents can. Adults can already turn off notifications themselves, so I don't know that that will create the same defaults.
- [30:15]
Host 2
Sure.
- [30:15]
Podcast Announcer
For, for adults. But although almost all these features are there optionally for, for an adult and I'd encourage them to as to be good role models, particularly if they're parents, to look at them and see which ones make sense.
- [30:32]
Host 2
I actually think a lot of adults probably don't know that they're optional toggles on and off that you can.
- [30:37]
Host 1
Yeah. The only reason I know is I was fortunate enough to go to like a meta, I don't know, seminar and they taught us so much about, you know, it's like keywords that you can block and just kind of how to deal with cyber. I learned so much and I didn't even know. So does everything that you're talking about work like cross platform?
- [30:58]
Podcast Announcer
Well, so with teen accounts, we launched them first on Instagram. We're now, we've now rolled them out. In the process of rolling them out for Facebook and for messenger, we sort of made it, we made a commitment in the company to trying to really align with what parents expectations were. And so, yes, that may look a little bit different, you know, on Facebook or on. On messenger, because they function a little bit differently, but the core feature and, and feature is the same.
- [31:26]
Host 1
Yeah. You know, we met on Facebook dm.
- [31:29]
Host 2
It's true.
- [31:30]
Podcast Announcer
Oh, wow.
- [31:31]
Host 2
Facebook Messenger.
- [31:32]
Host 1
Facebook Messenger. Yeah, we're, we're old school before all the dating apps. Yeah.
- [31:37]
Host 2
Good old fashioned Facebook.
- [31:38]
Host 1
Facebook. So what is, you know, I, I know going live is a fun thing that the kids do these days. What does going live on a teen account look like? Are there any restrictions there?
- [31:50]
Podcast Announcer
Yeah, there are actually and I'm glad you, I'm glad you brought it up. So going live, you're right, is super fun, but I think parents express concerns about who could contact a teen when they're live, who can see where the teen is when they're going live like that and what vulnerabilities that created. And so for teen accounts, if you want to go live, you have to get your parents permission.
- [32:13]
Host 1
Oh, like how, how do you get your parents permission?
- [32:16]
Podcast Announcer
You. Well, if you want to do that, you'll go to the setting. It will not allow you. You have to basically go ahead and set up our supervisory tools and then ask your parents permission and then your parent can turn that basically toggle on.
- [32:28]
Host 1
And then your parents can be in your life with you.
- [32:31]
Podcast Announcer
Like, I'm a cool mom, I'm a cool mom, or the not cool mom.
- [32:36]
Host 2
What are the use of? You know, I feel like Meta's been very heavy on AI lately. How does AI play into content in, in some of these tools that you've rolled out for teens?
- [32:47]
Podcast Announcer
Yeah, it's, it's a good, it's also a good question. You, you have had many good questions. AI is. First of all, I think we talk about AI a lot. I think people forget that AI has been around in, in these, in these apps for a long time. It's just become much more user facing these days. But we use AI for, we use AI. Actually we were talking before about age. So in trying to understand if someone is lying about their age, we're using AI collecting signals that would indicate that you might not be the age that you say that you say you are. We use AI for content moderation, although we also use human review for content moderation as well.
- [33:32]
Host 2
Wow.
- [33:33]
Host 1
Do you have any like anecdotes or real world stories of how teens has like been beneficial for, for some users?
- [33:45]
Podcast Announcer
Well, I think probably the, the, it's, this is not an anecdote, although I'll come back to that. The biggest thing that, that really has struck me in this is that 97% of teens are staying in those settings. So that says to me this is, feels right to them.
- [34:02]
Host 1
Yeah, you give them enough freedom where they want to stay. But they also like appreciate the boundaries and like you said, like, they probably feel safe too. Like we, that's one thing about doing What I do is like, we put so much out online and, you know, more than the average person. And it. There are times where I'm like, this just sometimes it feels a little unnatural. So I think that's. That's great.
- [34:24]
Podcast Announcer
Yeah. If it feels unnatural to you, imagine someone like me where this was not around when I was a kid at all. I still sometimes am like, who would care if I post about this? It seems really boring, but my daughter posts a lot about her life. I'm like, who cares?
- [34:41]
Host 1
Everyone cares.
- [34:42]
Podcast Announcer
Yeah, they do. They do. Apparently they care.
- [34:46]
Host 2
So I know that it's. Did you say that your team here was relatively new? Did you say September of 2024? Did I hear you say that?
- [34:54]
Podcast Announcer
No, my. I've been around. I've been around at Meta for 11 years with two accounts in September.
- [34:59]
Host 2
Yes, that's what I mean. So. So when you first joined Meta, what was your title like? How did it evolve and how did you kind of get here within Meta?
- [35:07]
Podcast Announcer
Yeah, so my title has always been Global Head of Safety, the company. Just to give you a sense, when I started, I think it was 4,000 people, and it's now like 80,000 or 60,000. It's a lot. It's grown tremendously, and our teams across all the stuff that I work on have grown tremendously. So our safety teams are huge. And the number of people who work on safety at Meta is huge. And it's everybody from the people who are building out the classifiers that I was talking to you about that figure out who might be lying about their age or classifiers on content moderation to the people who are writing the policies and thinking about what counts as bullying and how do we write a policy that's clear so that when someone's reviewing content to understand whether it's bullying or not, they have the right directions to understand that. So it's grown tremendously since I started.
- [36:08]
Host 2
How much of. I remember this was like a conversation a couple years ago, like, the content moderation team who just kind of had to, like, look at, you know, the good, bad and ugly of the Internet all day. How much of that is AI driven now versus, like, human interaction, like actually moderating content.
- [36:23]
Podcast Announcer
I don't have percentages, but I think one of the things that the industry broadly has tried to do is to use more technology, because sometimes the content can be. Be pretty upsetting to see. And if we can use technology to remove the most obvious, problematic, violating content so that people don't have to review it, that's better for the Reviewers too. So we try to. We've tried to use more and more tech to do that so that we can reduce the amount of exposure that any one human being would have to see.
- [36:54]
Host 2
Right. And I know that there's a. There's still like a human for like any type of appeals process because we posted things and we're very non controversial. We post to things that the AI just like got wrong. And sometimes it's really hard to appeal that content. And I'm sure that when you're moderating things for teen accounts, it's the same thing. But there still is that human appeals process too.
- [37:13]
Podcast Announcer
Yes, there's a human appeals process and for things that are closer calls, they. That may be sort of routed to some for a human to review automatically as well. So it is complex and it does. There's. It's hard to remove humans altogether. We need, we need that type of like individual specific review.
- [37:35]
Host 1
I. I only have a few more questions, but one of my things is, is there a way that a teen could get their account totally banned? Like if they cross too many restrictions? You know what I mean? If they, they get trouble, like strikes.
- [37:51]
Host 2
Yeah.
- [37:51]
Podcast Announcer
Yes. Well, there's a way for anybody on the platform to get totally banned. There's certain content that is just not okay to share on our. On our platform. So yucky to even talk about, but child exploitation. Yeah, child sexual exploitation. If that is the kind of content that will get you removed from. From our platform.
- [38:16]
Host 1
Yeah, yeah. So that, that obviously applies to adult accounts, but also teen accounts, which is great. And then it's also just like posting anything inappropriate. It's always nice to have something to threaten your kids with, you know? You know Instagram's gonna ban you if you post another belly button picture.
- [38:34]
Host 2
It's like, really? Like, I logged in. You're banned.
- [38:36]
Host 1
She's like in a crop top. I'm like, yeah, exactly.
- [38:40]
Host 2
I don't know. It's Mark. It was Mark.
- [38:42]
Host 1
It wasn't me.
- [38:43]
Host 2
I told you it wasn't Mom. It was Mark.
- [38:45]
Podcast Announcer
I'm not gonna give you parenting advice, but I will say that there were probably things that I said to my daughter that slightly exaggerated what might happen in order to get her.
- [38:55]
Host 2
Oh, for sure.
- [38:56]
Host 1
Of course. It's all my. My mom instilled the fear of God in me.
- [38:59]
Host 2
Yeah. Oh, my gosh. The lies we tell our kids.
- [39:01]
Host 1
It's not lies, it's just, it's.
- [39:03]
Host 2
It's boundaries.
- [39:04]
Host 1
No, it's exaggeration.
- [39:07]
Host 2
It's exaggerated parenting. Sorry. You had a couple other Questions.
- [39:12]
Host 1
Oh, this is such a. A random question. Well, first of all, I want to know is there anything else Tiggy from.
- [39:20]
Host 2
Wow, you went there. You went Tiggy.
- [39:23]
Host 1
Because I can't not say her name. It's such a great name. I almost called you Aunt Tiggy, but I didn't. Is there anything else that we didn't talk about in regards to teens that you want people to know about?
- [39:38]
Podcast Announcer
That's a good question. I think mainly what I want probably less specific for parents to know about is probably that the journey isn't over. That's a little bit of an overused word. But we are going to continue to listen to them. And I think, for example, in the area of content, we're still trying to figure out that exact. Make sure that we've got things in a place that parents feel good about and we expect things to evolve and change. We've already had new announcements from when we launched teen accounts. So that live that you were asking me about, that wasn't something that we did initially, but it's something that we did following. So I think what I want parents to know is that this is an ongoing conversation and we will continue to listen to them and that they're top of mind for us.
- [40:35]
Host 2
I have two last questions. One is what is a feature or a vision that you're excited about that your team's working on in the next year? And then same question, same question for the next five years.
- [40:50]
Host 1
Maybe specifics, maybe like general ideas or.
- [40:54]
Host 2
You can spill the tea on our podcast and we'll clip it.
- [40:59]
Podcast Announcer
I'm not sure I trust you. After all that exaggerated parenting.
- [41:05]
Host 2
You can't blame us. We don't have frontal lobes. It was ruined by MySpace.
- [41:11]
Host 1
And YouTube.
- [41:12]
Podcast Announcer
Oh, my God, my stomach muscles hurt. No. So what I would say is I'd watch on the area of content for what you'll. I think you'll see some things overcoming that will be. People will find valuable in terms of. In the next next five years. Gosh, it's like I have. I'm not even sure I can think about tomorrow.
- [41:35]
Host 1
Yeah.
- [41:39]
Podcast Announcer
I don't. I wish I had something like brilliant to say. I don't. I. I would expect that in the next five years there'll be a lot of focus on. On AI and how young people interact with AI and we're certainly thinking about that right now and how we do that in a way that parents feel comfortable with and that teens understand when they're interacting with AI and not. And not interacting with AI.
- [42:02]
Host 1
You got to tell Tiggy about our toys and ask her what she thinks about them.
- [42:05]
Host 2
Oh, Tiggy, I just got these new toys. Curio. I wish they were up here. They have like.
- [42:14]
Host 1
We had this like video kind of go viral because Jordan was on the wait list for this AI toy, like a stuffed animal.
- [42:21]
Host 2
I think one of the guys on your board is the main investor behind it. It's a company called Curio. Anyway, there's like an AI like little computer in this like Furby esque toy. But it. You can like tell it all about your kids interests and it'll be like, hey Stella, let's talk about princesses. And it can play like games and like teach them lessons, teach them everything.
- [42:43]
Host 1
They can ask, you know, what's the weather like outside? Or they can tell other feelings. They can. And we posted this video because like, I feel like we're. I feel like we're kind of like the cool parents where we're like, let's give it a shot. Like, you know, like, AI is kind of cool. Like for me, when I get an ad and it's something that I was thinking, I'm like, I love this. Yeah, well, it's reading my mind.
- [43:07]
Host 2
Listen, Aunt Tiggy, let's be real. Is Instagram listening to us? Because that, that ad algorithm is too dialed.
- [43:15]
Podcast Announcer
I think you'd be surprised at the, the number of breadcrumbs that you leave, not just by somebody listening to you, but just in your. In your.
- [43:24]
Host 2
So it knows us better than we know ourselves?
- [43:26]
Host 1
No, I love it. Like, I love that. It just tells me exactly what I need. Like, but anyway, so when it comes to these toys, it kind of like went viral because people were like so freaked out. But it's also on the app, like you can see the conversations that the toy is having with your child and it's all about colors and shapes and different types of dinosaurs. And I'm like, this is great. Like, I think it's really cool.
- [43:49]
Host 2
But yeah, to be honest, they were over the toy in a day. So.
- [43:52]
Host 1
Yeah, it's not.
- [43:53]
Podcast Announcer
By the way. They're gonna. Once they've learned all that, they're gonna be, you know, potentially smarter than you are. So you better get started on next level of.
- [44:01]
Host 2
I think our daughter already is. I'm gonna be honest. Like, I think she's smarter than me. Um, okay, my last question is, have you met Mark and what is he like?
- [44:11]
Podcast Announcer
I have met Mark and I would say, if I were to say what's his. One of his best skill sets. He is an incredible listener. He's very thoughtful.
- [44:21]
Host 1
Really? Oh, I love that.
- [44:23]
Host 2
Good guy.
- [44:24]
Host 1
Yeah. Listen, a listening leader. We always love this.
- [44:26]
Host 2
We love this. Well, Aunt Tiggy, it's so great. I can't wait to have you at Thanksgiving dinner.
- [44:33]
Host 1
My little nieces are going to be.
- [44:35]
Podcast Announcer
Like, wait, I didn't know that you had other nieces and nephews.
- [44:41]
Host 1
No, seriously, thank you so much for this conversation. I think it's going to give a lot of. Of our. Our listeners a lot of our parents peace of mind and. And we obviously love what you're doing over at Meta and really appreciate the conversation.
- [44:53]
Podcast Announcer
Well, thank you. And I. And thank you for being curious about technology and any guidance or thoughts that you have as parents. Just make sure to, like, get them to me so I can be thinking about them.
- [45:02]
Host 1
Yeah, we got you, Aunt Tiggy. All right, we'll talk to you later.
- [45:06]
Podcast Announcer
Thank you.
- [45:07]
Host 1
Bye.
- [45:07]
Podcast Announcer
Bye.
- [45:08]
Host 1
For access to more helpful tools and expert guidance, parents can visit familycenter.meta.com.
- [45:18]
Podcast Announcer
Please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this episode.