Snapchat presents new parental controls which will allow parents to restrict their teens from interacting with the app’s AI chatbot. The changes will also allow parents to see their teens’ privacy settings and have easier access to Family Center, which is the dedicated part of the app for parental controls.
Parents can now restrict My AI, Snapchat’s artificial intelligence chatbot, from responding to their teen’s conversations. The new parental controls come as Snapchat launched My AI nearly a year ago and faced criticism for doing so without proper aging features, as the chatbot was found to be conversing with minors about topics such as masking the smell of weed and getting in the mood for sex.
Snapchat says the new restriction feature builds on My AI’s current safeguards, including “protections against inappropriate or harmful responses, temporary usage restrictions if Snapchatters repeatedly misuse the service, and age awareness.”
Additionally, parents will now be able to see their teens’ safety and privacy settings. For example, a parent can see if their teen can share their story with their friends or a smaller group of select users. Additionally, a parent can see who can contact their teen in the app by viewing their contact settings. Parents can now also see if their teen is sharing their location with their Snap Map friends.
For parents who may not be aware of the app’s parental controls, Snapchat makes Family Center easy to find. Parents can now find Family Center directly from their profile or by going to their settings.
Image Credits: Snapchat
“Snapchat was created to help people connect with their friends the same way they would offline, and Family Center reflects the dynamics of real-world relationships between parents and teens, where parents have insight into who they’re spending time with their teenagers, while still respecting the privacy of their personal communications,” Snapchat wrote in the blog post. “We worked closely with families and online safety experts to develop the Family Center and use their feedback to inform it Additional features on a regular basis.”
Snapchat launched Family Center in 2022 in response to increased pressure on social networks to do more to protect young users on their platforms from harm both in the US and abroad.
The expansion of the app’s parental controls comes as Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel is scheduled to testify before the Senate on child safety on January 31, along with X (formerly Twitter), TikTok, Meta and Discord. Committee members are expected to press company executives over the failure of their platforms to protect children online.
The changes also come two months after Snap and Meta received formal requests for information (RFIs) from the European Commission about the measures they take to protect young users on their social networks. The Commission has also sent similar requests to TikTok and YouTube.
Snapchat isn’t the only company rolling out child safety-related features this week, as Meta introduced new restrictions earlier this week. The tech giant announced that it was going to start automatically limiting the type of content that teens’ Instagram and Facebook accounts can see on the platforms. These accounts will automatically be restricted from seeing harmful content, such as posts about self-harm, graphic violence and eating disorders.
