Meta Platforms Inc, which owns Facebook disclosed that it will enable parents to watch how much time their children are spending on Instagram and that parental supervision capabilities for Quest virtual reality headsets will be available soon.
Meta vowed to protect youngsters using its social media platforms after a whistleblower published internal emails showing the firm was aware that Instagram was causing body image problems for some teenage girls.
As a result of the outcry caused by the stolen records, Instagram’s CEO, Adam Mosseri, testified before Congress in December, where he was interrogated about children’s online safety.
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The Instagram monitoring tools will be available in the United States, with a global rollout following in the coming months, according to Meta.
Parents will be able to see which Instagram accounts their children follow, as well as establish time limits for how much time they spend on the app.
In May, Meta will release a dashboard for its Quest headsets that incorporates parental controls and will automatically prevent minors from downloading age-inappropriate apps.
In a blog post, Meta stated that parental supervision on Instagram and Quest will require teen permission.
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.
Instagram’s new features come after whistleblower Frances Haugen released a trove of internal Meta documents to media outlets that showed the company knew Instagram had a negative impact on teenage girls’ body images.
In October, Haugen testified before the Senate Consumer Protection Subcommittee, accusing Meta of knowingly making Instagram more addictive for teen users.
