Snapchat offers New parental controls This will allow parents to restrict their teens from interacting with the app’s chatbot. The changes will also allow parents to view their teens’ privacy settings, and get easier access to Family Center, the app’s designated place for parental controls.
Parents can now restrict My AI, Snapchat’s AI-powered 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 occasion age determination features, The chatbot was found to chat with minors about topics such as masking the smell of weed and setting the mood for sex.
Snapchat says the new restriction feature builds on My AI’s existing safeguards, “including protection against inappropriate or malicious responses, temporary usage restrictions if Snapchatters repeatedly misuse the service, and age awareness.”
Additionally, parents will now be able to see their teens’ security and privacy settings. For example, if a parent has a teenage child, they can share their story with their friends or a smaller group of selected users. In addition, a parent can see who can contact their teen through the app by viewing their contact settings. Parents can now also see if their teen is sharing their location with their friends on Snap Map.
As 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 heading to their settings.
![](https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/snapchat-family-center.jpg)
Image credits: snap chat
“Snapchat is designed to help people connect with their friends in the same way they communicate offline, and Family Center reflects the dynamics of real-life relationships between parents and teens, where parents have insight into who their teens are spending time with, while still being in the know,” Snapchat wrote. Blog post: “Respect the privacy of their personal communications.” “We worked closely with families and online safety experts to develop Family Center and use their feedback to update it Additional features Regularly.”
Snapchat launched Family Center in 2022 in response to growing pressure on social networks to do more to protect young users on their platforms from harm both in the United States 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 corporate executives about their platforms’ inability to protect children online.
The changes also come two months after Snap and Meta received formal requests for information (RFI) from the European Commission about the steps they are taking to protect young users on their social networks. The Commission also sent similar requests to TikTok and YouTube.
Snapchat isn’t the only company launching child safety features this week, as Meta introduced new restrictions earlier this week. The tech giant announced that it will begin automatically limiting the type of content that teen accounts on Instagram and Facebook can see on the platforms. These accounts will automatically be blocked from seeing harmful content, such as posts related to self-harm, graphic violence, and eating disorders.