UPDATE 8/9: Snapchat has launched a new supervision tool that lets parents keep tabs on who their teens message, without disclosing the content.
Original Story:Screenshots depicting Snapchat's upcoming parental control features have reportedly offered a glimpse at what the ephemeral messaging service appears to be calling Family Center.
TechCrunch reports that Watchful, a market intelligence company, shared a handful of screenshots of Family Center in action nearly seven months after Snap CEO Evan Spiegel revealed that Snapchat was developing these parental control features at WSJ Tech Live.
The screenshots obtained by Watchful and published by TechCrunch indicate that Family Center will allow parents of teenagers to "get visibility into who they are friends with," "see who they have messaged in the last seven days," and "feel comfortable reporting abuse" to Snapchat.
"The parental control feature works by allowing parents to invite their teen (or teens) to the new in-app Family Center in order to begin the monitoring," TechCrunch reports. "The recipient of that invitation has the option of either accepting or declining the invitation."
This demonstrates the care with which Snap needs to approach the introduction of parental control features. The company probably doesn't want to alienate teenage users by giving their parents unfettered access to these tools, but it doesn't want to risk the parents' ire, either.
Snap didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.