Do your kids use Snapchat? The social network has launched a series of new features that will allow you to control the content your children see on the app. The ‘Content Controls’ tool, announced this week, is located in its Family Center, a section where you can manage parental permissions for minors using the Snap app.
With these new Content Controls, parents or legal guardians will be able to block “sensitive or suggestive” content on Snapchat from appearing in their child’s Stories or Spotlight. To activate this feature, parents will need to access the Family Center and select the “Restrict Sensitive Content” feature.
Snapchat warns that enabling this feature will not block content that minors can view in other features of the app other than Stories and Spotlight, such as chats, Snaps and search. The company also clarifies in its new content guidelines for community members that by “sensitive or suggestive” it means any content with “moderately suggestive language” (sexually speaking) or that glorifies violence.
“We have always shared these guidelines with our media partners and Snap Stars. By publishing these full content guidelines for anyone to read, we want to provide greater transparency into the stricter standards we set for public-facing content and our eligibility requirements for distribution,” states the Snap team.
In addition, Snapchat plans to add new parental controls in Family Center that will allow parents and legal guardians to monitor minors’ use of My AI, Snapchat’s new chatbot that is still in the testing phase.
The inclusion of new parental features in social networking apps is a top priority in a digital world populated by an ever-increasing amount of adult content. Instagram launched new parental control tools and resources last summer, and TikTok recently debuted new features aimed at managing underage use of the short video app.
