Snapchat introduces the Family Center parental control portal. This will initially allow you to see a list of your teens’ friends. Many more options are expected in the near future.
Snapchat has launched a parental control portal that allows parents to keep track of who their children are talking to. This new feature, called Family Center, shows parents a list of their children’s friends, as well as who they’ve exchanged with in the past seven days.
Snapchat Unveils Family Center Parental Control Portal
First, an important clarification: Parents can only see usernames, not the messages themselves. Snap explains that the center was conceived and designed to “mirror the way…parents connect with their children in the real world”, most of the time they know who the kids are in contact with without necessarily knowing everything about their conversations.
This will initially allow you to see a list of their teens’ friends.
In addition, parents can confidentially report accounts directly from the Family Center that they believe are in violation of the platform’s Terms of Service. Last January, Snapchat changed its friend recommendation feature after numerous requests to improve the app’s security to make it harder for adults to connect with younger people. In fact, the system no longer shows user accounts between the ages of 13 and 17 through “Quick Add”. Teens also cannot have a public profile and must be friends with each other in order to communicate with each other. Also, their account will only show up in search results under certain circumstances.
Last year, Snap promised to launch new parental controls and other features to keep kids safe. The company revealed its plans during a hearing in which lawmakers are demanding networks and other social apps targeted at teens, such as Snapchat and TikTok, do more to protect them.
The Family Center is completely voluntary, and teens can always leave this portal if they want to, they even have the choice of accepting or ignoring their parents’ invitation to join the operation. And since this feature is for teenagers, users will be automatically removed from the tool when they turn 18.
Many more options are expected in the near future
The company plans to roll out more features in this Family Center. In particular, parents will soon be able to easily see their teens’ new friends. And in the coming months, Snap will add parental controls over content, as well as the ability for teens to tell parents when they report an account or content.