Snapchat wants to ‘empower’ families with Family Centre feature. Here’s what to know

Features like Family Centre might be an improvement in protecting and monitoring kids’ social media, one online safety advocate told NPR that such a tool might not be realistic for all parents. — Photo by April Walker on Unsplash

Snapchat released a new parental control tool in its app called Family Centre that gives parents a way to monitor who their kids are communicating with on the social media platform.

Snapchat has been around for over a decade, but the features released on Tuesday, Aug 9 are the first parent controls to come to the app. Details of the new Family Centre were published in a blog post by Snap Inc, Snapchat’s parent company. Here’s what parents and teens should know about it.