Facebook Will Now Let Parents Keep A Tab On Their Teens' Chatting Circles: Safety Or Invasion Of Privacy?

On Tuesday, Facebook-parent Meta Platforms Inc. META announced a revamp to its suite of safety tools, empowering parents and guardians to better supervise who their teen children are talking to on Messenger.

What Happened: Parents and guardians can see who their teen children are talking to on Facebook Messenger, thanks to a new suite of parental supervision tools.

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Starting Tuesday, parents and guardians in the US, UK, and Canada will be able to monitor the activity of their teenage children on Facebook Messenger. This includes who they are talking to, the people they have blocked, changes in the contact list, and more.

In a press release, Meta said these safety tools will roll out to other markets soon.

"Over the next year, we'll add more features to Parental Supervision on Messenger so parents can help their teens better manage their time and interactions while still balancing their privacy," Meta said, outlining its plans to expand these safety tools.

Right now, this is what parents and guardians will be able to do:

• View the time spent on Messenger.
• View and receive updates on changes to their teen's contact list on Messenger.
• Receive notifications when their teen reports someone.
• View their teen's message and story privacy settings.

Why Is It Important: Meta's rollout of parental safety tools comes days after a report by The Wall Street Journal, which outlined a vast network of pedophiles operating on the platform buying and selling underage sex content.

A previous report by The Guardian also shed light on how Facebook and Instagram, two of the world's largest social networks, became marketplaces for child sex trafficking.

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