FOLLOWING moves by major tech platforms to better protect minors using their platforms, Snapchat is preparing to introduce its own set of “family engagement” tools in the coming months. Snap CEO Evan Spiegel teased the planned offering during a recent interview, where he explained that the new product will essentially function as a family center that gives parents better visibility into how teens are using its service and provide privacy controls. Spiegel stressed Snapchat’s more private nature as a tool for communicating with friends, noting that Snapchat user profiles were already private by default — something that differentiated it from some social media rivals until recently. “I think the entire way this service is constructed really promotes a safe experience regardless of what age you are, but we never market our service to people under the age of 13,” he said, then added Snap is now working on new features that would allow parents to feel more comfortable with the app. “We haven’t announced the name of this product yet, but we basically have a family center so that young people and their parents can use Snapchat together,” Spiegel said. This product would give parents more visibility into who their teenage users may be talking to on Snapchat and their privacy settings, among other things. Snap in June had shared this sort of work was on its roadmap, when parents who lost their son to a drug overdose were advocating for the company to work with third-party parental control software applications. At the time, Snap said that it was being careful about sharing private user data with third parties and that it was looking into developing its own parental controls, as a solution. Reached for comment on Spiegel’s remarks at the WSJ event, a Snap spokesperson confirmed the new family engagement tools will combine both an educational component as well as tools meant to be used by parents. “Our overall goal is to help educate and empower young people to make the right choices to enhance their online safety and to help parents be partners with their kids in navigating the digital world,” a spokesperson said. “When we build new products or features, we try to do it in a way that reflects natural human behaviors and relationships — and the parental tools we are developing are meant to give parents better insights to help protect their kids, in ways that don’t compromise their privacy or data security, are legally compliant and offered at no charge to families within Snapchat,” they added. The company said it looked forward to sharing more details about the family tools “soon.” As U.S. lawmakers consider legislation that would require tech companies to implement new safeguards to better protect minors on their services, tech companies have been trying to get ahead of the coming crackdown by putting into place their own interpretations of those rules now. Already, many of the top tech platforms used by teens have implemented parental controls or have adjusted their default settings to be more private or have done both. (SD-Agencies) | 