Introducing Content Controls in Family Center

Introducing Content Controls in Family Center

Last year, we launched Family Center on Snapchat, giving parents a way to get insight into who their teens are interacting with on Snapchat, while still protecting their teens' privacy. We also shared our plans to add other tools over time to help parents customize the individual experiences and needs of the young people in their care.

Today, we're excited to introduce Content Controls, our newest feature in Family Center that lets parents limit what their teens can watch on Snapchat.

Snapchat is designed to be different from familiar social media platforms, and that includes the way people consume content. There are two sections in our application where content can reach a wide audience:

Stories;
  is our content platform where creators, Snap Stars, and more than 900 media partners including NBC News, Axios, ESPN, Le Monde, and People deliver trusted news, entertainment, sports, and other content. Stories is not a free platform and creators and our partners must comply with our content publishing rules.
Stage Light
is our entertainment platform where Snapchat users can watch fun and creative content created by members of our community. All content that Snapchat users submit to Spotlight must comply with our Community Guidelines.

We are very cautious when determining what types of content we allow to be published. Our platform and policies are designed to prevent content that has not been reviewed by us from going viral, and we proactively moderate publicly viewable content from creators and Snapchatters before making it available in Stories or Spotlight.

Our new Content Controls in Family Center will allow parents to filter Stories from publishers and creators that may be described as sensitive or explicit. To enable Content Controls, parents need to set up a Family Center with the teen they are responsible for.

While the types of content and behavior that are strictly prohibited across our platform are outlined in our Community Guidelines, we've further raised the standard for public content recommended to Snapchat users in Stories or Spotlight.

This is the first time we're publishing our Content Guidelines for members of our community whose content appears in Stories or Spotlight. These rules define:

Prohibited content, consistent with our Community Guidelines;

What content is eligible to be recommended in Stories or Spotlight; Recommended content will reach more people;

What content is considered sensitive and can be restricted using our new Content Controls.

We have always shared these rules with our media partners and Snap Stars. By publishing these full content guidelines publicly, we aim to provide greater transparency about the high standards we set for public content and our eligibility requirements for distributing content to audiences.

These new tools and rules; In addition to helping parents, caregivers, trusted adults, and teens personalize their Snapchat experience, we hope it will also encourage them to have productive conversations about their online experiences. You can find resources to help you initiate these types of conversations with the youth in your charge on our updated safety site.

Finally, we are working to add additional tools to our Family Center in support of our experimental chatbot, My AI; These tools will give parents greater visibility and control over their teenager's use of My AI.