Yahoo Finance Parents can now read their kids’ Facebook Messenger chats
Parents will now be able to look through their children’s Facebook Messenger conversations following a suite of updates to the Messenger Kids app.
The social media giant announced updates to the app on 4 February, which include several new features that afford parents greater control over their child’s messaging experience – including being able to read back on messages that have been sent and received by their children.
Facebook Messenger Kids was launched in 2017 after parents expressed concern about their children’s safety and online experience through the regular Messenger platform.
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“With two out of three parents wishing they had more control over their kids’ online experiences, we’ve continued our dialogue with parents and experts around the world to ensure we’re providing a messaging app that works for families,” said Facebook product manager Morgan Brown.
“Today, we’re announcing additional tools and features for parents to manage their child’s experience in Messenger Kids, and updating our privacy policy.”
The update contains the following new features to the app’s Parent Dashboard:
Being able to see who your child is chatting to; whether they’re exchanging texts or video chats; and how frequent these conversations have been in the last 30 days;
Being able to view recent videos and images sent in conversations, and being able to remove it if it’s not appropriate or report it;
Being able to see and be notified when your child has blocked and/or reported someone, whether they’ve reported any messages, contacts, and why;
See what devices your child is logged in to Messenger Kids and being able to log them out; and
Being able to download your child’s information, which will include their contacts, and the messages, images, and videos they’ve sent and received. Children are notified when this happens.
Parents whose children use the Messenger Kids app can find the new features on the Parent Dashboard, which is found in the shortcut menu of the Facebook app and scrolling to the Messenger Kids icon.
Parents have the power to control their children’s contact list through the Messenger Kids app.
There is also a ‘sleep mode’ which allows mums and dads to control what time their children have access to the app.
For more information about the Messenger Kids app, visit the website or Facebook’s Help Centre page.
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