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Why Meta Is Now Scanning Your Skeleton to ‘Protect’ You
Underage accounts slip through social media’s age barriers daily, exposing children to content they shouldn’t see. Meta’s new AI bone structure analysis aims to close those gaps by scanning uploaded photos for height and developmental markers. This isn’t your typical content moderation update — it’s proactive age detection that could reshape how platforms verify users.
Your teenager’s selfies now undergo algorithmic scrutiny designed to protect younger kids from accessing adult-oriented spaces. The technology deliberately avoids facial recognition, instead focusing on general visual cues like height and bone structure to estimate age ranges. “Our AI looks at general themes and visual cues, for example height or bone structure, to estimate someone’s general age; it does not identify the specific person,” Meta states in their official announcement.
The company combines these physical markers with contextual clues from posts — school mentions, birthday references, friend interactions — to build age profiles. When the AI flags potential underage accounts, users face deactivation until they provide verification proving they’re 13 or older. No proof means permanent deletion.
Supreme Court Considers Whether Police Can Use Big Tech Data to Capture Info From All Cellphone Users in a Place and Time
Google tracks the vast majority of cellphones in the United States, collecting your location, usage and device data through installed software and apps. The tracking occurs by various autonomous processes you cannot see or stop, even when you turn off location history, and Google and other companies keep that data for years.
Outside of your control and wherever you go, your cellphone continuously creates a durable and revealing digital trail, and law enforcement agencies can get warrants to obtain it. But some of those warrants aren’t looking for data about a specific person.
Instead, police are compelling tech companies to reveal every cellphone in a particular area during certain time periods. Called geofence warrants, their use is at the heart of a case before the U.S. Supreme Court that will determine what the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable search and seizure mean in the digital age.
Pennsylvania Sues AI Company, Saying Its Chatbots Illegally Hold Themselves out as Licensed Doctors
Pennsylvania has sued an artificial intelligence chatbot maker, saying its chatbots illegally hold themselves out as doctors and are deceiving the system’s users into thinking they are getting medical advice from a licensed professional.
The lawsuit, filed Friday, asks the statewide Commonwealth Court to order Character Technologies Inc., the company behind Character.AI, to stop its chatbots “from engaging in the unlawful practice of medicine and surgery.”
The lawsuit could raise the question as to whether artificial intelligence can be accused of practicing medicine, as opposed to regurgitating material on the internet. And with a growing number of wrongful death or negligence lawsuits targeting AI companies, it could help propel court decisions as to whether AI chatbots are protected by a federal law that generally exempts internet companies from liability for the material users post on their services.
Facial Recognition Arrives at the Gates of Disney’s Magic Kingdom
Disney has equipped select entrance lanes at Disneyland Park and Disney California Adventure Park with facial recognition technology, saying the system is intended to streamline re-entry procedures and help prevent fraud. According to the company, certain entrance lanes use cameras to capture an image linked to a guest’s ticket or pass and compare it with a newly taken image at the entrance. The system then converts both images into unique numerical values using biometric technology to verify a match.
Disney says the numerical data is deleted within 30 days unless it must be retained for legal or fraud-prevention purposes. The company notes that participation is voluntary and that traditional entry lanes without biometric scanning remain available. However, guests using those lanes may still have their image taken. Disney also states that it has implemented technical, administrative, and physical security measures designed to protect guest data from unauthorized access, misuse, or disclosure.
The company adds that its security procedures are regularly reviewed and updated. Privacy groups have long opposed the spread of facial recognition technology, warning that systems built around convenience can slowly turn constant monitoring into something people stop questioning.
‘Freedom framing’ Could Be More Effective Than Mandates for Vaccine-Hesitant Americans
University of Houston researchers are applying the principles of marketing science to public health, proposing that the way vaccines are “framed” could be a factor in overcoming hesitancy. According to one study, the COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy rate in the U.S. was nearly 30% at the height of the pandemic due to lack of confidence, complacency and other factors.
When examining COVID-19 era public health campaigns, marketing professors Parthasarathy Krishnamurthy and Ye Hu from the C. T. Bauer College of Business identified a common flaw: most campaigns adopted a broad, universal approach rather than focusing on the individual “customer.”
“At the core of it, vaccination is a behavioral challenge; it’s about marketplace behaviors,” Krishnamurthy said. “All people are not uniform in their opinions, beliefs and experiences with vaccines. One of the cornerstones of marketing is the recognition that not everybody responds in the same way to the same message.”
Gen Z Leads Drive Away From Social Media
A growing number of Gen Zers and baby boomers are quitting social media for their digital well-being, as political polarization intensifies online. It’s part of a wider digital detox drive away from screens and toward analog options that Gen Z is helping to lead.
Research suggests that social media use is waning and that more people are embracing products to block distracting apps and turning to dumbphones, with more affordable options on the market.
A study out last month found the average number of social media platforms American adults are using is declining, with 12% of over-65s and 7% of 18- to 29-year-olds using no social media at all. The study, published in the Journal of Quantitative Description: Digital Media, found that overall posting declined from 2020 to 2024 for most users and polarization on platforms increased, as did the number of angry posts.
“What you’re seeing now, especially among Gen Z, is a self-correction back toward real-world connection,” says NYU social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, author of a bestselling book on the effect of phones on teens, in a statement.
“They’ve felt the costs of isolation and are rediscovering what actually leads to flourishing.”
