Snapchat to let parents see who their kids are chatting with in app - The Verge
Snapchat’s new "Family Center" hub allows parents and guardians to keep tabs on who their teens message with on the app without disclosing what it is they’re saying to each other.
As part of Snap’s child safety efforts, Snapchat is launching a new supervision tool on Tuesday that the company says mimics how parents and teenagers interact in the real world.
Snapchat’s new “Family Center” hub allows parents and guardians to keep tabs on who their teens message with on the app without disclosing what it is they’re saying to each other. Both the guardian and the child must accept the Family Center invite before the oversight tools can take effect. Once the invites are accepted, a guardian can see the entirety of their child’s friends list and a list of accounts they’ve interacted with over the last seven days and report concerning accounts to Snap’s Trust and Safety Team.
“Our goal was to create a set of tools designed to reflect the dynamics of real-world relationships and foster collaboration and trust between parents and teens,” Snap said in its Tuesday blog post. The feature is meant to copy real-life relationships, like when a parent lets a kid’s friends come over but doesn’t monitor everything they say.
Snap plans to roll out new Family Center features over the next few weeks, including tools allowing parents to view the new friends their children have added along with additional content controls.
Snapchat’s Family Center allows parents to see who their children are talking to on the app.
Image: Snap
Snap’s new parental controls come as lawmakers continue their work to address children’s online safety. After Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen leaked internal documents disclosing how Meta’s platforms can harm young users, some of the largest tech platforms were called in to testify before Congress. Among YouTube and TikTok was a representative from Snap before a Senate committee last October.
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