Meta Platforms Inc, which owns Facebook, said on Wednesday that it will allow parents to monitor how much time their children spend on Instagram and that parental supervision capability will be added to Quest virtual reality headsets shortly.
The new parental controls are part of Meta’s promise to protect kids using its social media applications after an internal document revealed the firm knew Instagram was causing body image problems for some young ladies. In response to the outcry caused by the stolen records, Instagram’s CEO, Adam Mosseri, testified before Congress in December, answering questions regarding children’s online safety.
According to Meta, the Instagram supervision tools will be accessible in the United States starting Wednesday, with a global rollout following in the coming months. Parents will be able to see whose accounts their children follow and establish time limits for how much time they spend on the app. Meta is also launching a new “Family Center” portal that will connect all of its products, including Instagram, to provide parental supervision tools and educational content.
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It will contain video instructions on how to use the new tools as well as advice for parents on how to talk to their children about the internet. In May, Meta will release a dashboard for its Quest headsets that incorporates parental controls and automatically prevents minors from downloading age-inappropriate apps.
Meta stated that parental supervision on Instagram and Quest will require teen agreement in a blog post. The firm also stated that it intends to allow parents to manage their children’s activities across all of Meta’s services from a single location in the future.