Meta officially announced on Tuesday that it is integrating comprehensive parental supervision tools into the Threads platform. Accessible through Meta’s centralized Family Center, these new features empower guardians to monitor their teen’s screen time, establish daily usage limits, configure sleep modes, and adjust specific privacy settings.
Responding to Regulatory Pressure
This rollout arrives as Meta faces mounting pressure from lawmakers and regulators to enhance online protections for younger users. The company has spent recent years expanding safety features across its suite of apps to mitigate concerns regarding excessive screen time, exposure to harmful content, and overall teen safety. These measures are particularly critical as Meta, alongside other major social media platforms, currently navigates numerous lawsuits centered on child safety.
The introduction of these tools to Threads—a platform boasting 500 million monthly users—comes three years after its initial launch in July 2023.
Detailed Oversight and Time Management
Through the new dashboard, parents gain visibility into their teen’s daily usage habits over the past week, including average time spent on the app. The system allows for the imposition of strict daily time limits and the ability to block access entirely during specific hours or days. Notably, if a teen accesses Threads via multiple devices, such as a smartphone and a laptop, these limits aggregate the total usage time.
Privacy and Nighttime Protection
Beyond time tracking, parents can now manage nighttime access. This builds upon existing features where notifications are muted and auto-replies are enabled by default for all teens between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. Additionally, parents gain the authority to control who is permitted to tag their teen in posts.
While Meta maintains that Threads already includes built-in safeguards, such as default private accounts and content filtering, these new controls allow parents to override settings for users under 16, preventing them from making these protections less restrictive.
Global Rollout Schedule
The parental supervision suite is scheduled to launch in the United States next week. A spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch that Meta intends to expand these Threads-specific parental controls to a global audience by the end of the year.
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