Snapchat is introducing new parental controls that will allow parents to restrict their teens from interacting with the app’s AI chatbot. The changes will also allow parents to view their teens’ privacy settings, and get easier access to Family Center, which is the app’s dedicated place for parental controls.
Parents can now restrict My AI, Snapchat’s AI-powered chatbot, from responding to chats from their teen. The new parental control comes as Snapchat launched My AI nearly a year ago and faced criticism for doing so without appropriate age-gating features, as the chatbot was found to be chatting to minors about topics like covering up the smell of weed and setting the mood for sex.
Snapchat says the new restriction feature builds on My AI’s current safeguards, including “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 access and monitor their teen’s safety and privacy settings on the app. This includes their ability to share their Story with friends or a select group, as well as who can contact them on the app. Parents can also track their teen’s location through the Snap Map feature.
Snapchat is also making it easier for parents to find and use the Family Center, which was launched in 2022 in response to increasing pressure on social networks to protect young users from harm.
“Snapchat was built to help people communicate with their friends in 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 their teens are spending time with, while still respecting the privacy of their personal communications,” Snapchat wrote in a blog post. “We worked closely with families and online safety experts to develop Family Center and use their feedback to update it with additional features on a regular basis.”
This announcement comes ahead of Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel’s scheduled testimony before the Senate on child safety, alongside other social media giants like X (formerly Twitter), TikTok, Meta, and Discord. The executives are expected to address concerns about their platforms’ lack of protection for minors online.
In recent developments, both Snapchat and Meta have received formal requests for information from the European Commission regarding their steps towards protecting child users on their social networks. Similar requests were also sent to TikTok and YouTube.
In response, Instagram and Facebook, both owned by Meta, have announced new limitations for teen accounts, automatically restricting their access to harmful content such as posts about self-harm, graphic violence, and eating disorders.
