To better protect the youngest on its platforms, Meta is implementing new parental supervision tools. A way to manage the time spent on its applications and to promote dialogue between parents and teenagers.
Like any online platform, Meta’s social networks, namely Facebook, Instagram and Messenger instant messaging can lead to many abuses among the youngest, such as addiction, contact with ill-intentioned strangers, cyberbullying or exposure to inappropriate content. In short, parents can quickly feel overwhelmed by it all. Fortunately, there are control tools available within the applications themselves which make it possible to limit and supervise the activity of the youngest on the platforms as well as possible, in order to limit the nuisance as much as possible. Meta ad on his blog on August 31, the deployment in France and around the world of new parental supervision tools to enable adolescents to better manage the time spent on applications and parents to better “framing the online experiences and interactions of teens on Meta technologies”.
Parental supervision: managing screen time and engaging in dialogue
First, Meta extends the parental supervision tools available on Instagram to Messenger messaging. Parents will be able to follow the activity of teenagers, by seeing for example how much time they spend on the application, the accounts they have added, who can view their stories or send them messages (only their friends, friends of their friends or anyone), and how they have adjusted their privacy settings. They will also receive notifications if the miner reports a user or if privacy settings are changed. For privacy reasons, however, parents cannot read their children’s chats: their content and messaging activity remain private. The goal is not to control them, but to stay informed and start a conversation about the use of social networks.
Instagram already displays safety reminders when adults who have exhibited potentially suspicious behavior message a teenager, and prohibits users over 19 from direct messaging unfollowing teenagers. Meta introduces new tools for social network messaging. Now, before they can message someone who doesn’t follow them, users need to send an invite. They won’t be able to send any more until the recipient accepts it. Of course, these invitations can only contain text, in order to avoid receiving unwanted content, particularly of a sexual nature.
Meta also adds time management features to Instagram and Facebook. So teens can now choose to have notifications pop up when they’ve spent 20 minutes on Facebook, prompting them to take a break from the app and set daily time limits. Additionally, Instagram’s Silent Mode is now available to everyone. This one mutes notifications, changes their online status, and sends an auto-reply when someone sends them a direct message.
Finally, Meta has added new Instagram monitoring tools to give parents more visibility into their teens’ activities, while encouraging them – through new notifications – to engage in conversations about social media. For example, a message will automatically appear to young people after they block someone to encourage them to allow their parents to supervise their Instagram account. Additionally, adults will now be able to see how many mutual friends teens have with these accounts. Finally, the platform will benefit from new ways to customize the notifications from the parental supervision tool that they want to receive and how often.
