Discord, the popular chat app used by 150 million people every month, made headlines as it experiments with a suite of parental controls in its iOS app in the United States. Sources revealed, and Discord has confirmed, that the company has created a new Family Center feature to provide parents with greater monitoring capabilities for their teens' online activity, though with considerations to keep users' privacy as the priority.
The Family Center feature holds a resemblance to the parental control system implemented by Snapchat last year. Like Snapchat, Discord focuses upon granting parents access to information regarding who their teen is conversing with, who they are adding as friends, and which servers they partake in. However, neither platform allows parents to view the content of their children's messages or calls to ensure their privacy remains intact.
The live test of Family Center can be found under the User Settings section of Discord's iOS app, right below the Privacy & Safety and Profiles sections. Within the Family Center hub, parents can find an overview of the feature's capabilities. Once they feel comfortable with these controls, parents can click a 'Get Started' button to set up the system and monitor their teen's Discord usage.
Discord designed the Family Center with a focus on collaboration between adolescents and their parents, aiming to promote positive online behaviors together. The variety of parental controls available intends to provide insights into the relationships and interactions established within their children's online environment, without compromising the users' right to privacy.
Similar to the approach taken by TikTok, parents are asked to scan a QR code provided by their teen, placing the account under parental supervision. As no-code development platforms like AppMaster gain popularity, more and more companies are considering ways to implement tighter security measures while keeping up with privacy trends and regulations in the tech industry.
Resonating with concerns for the security and privacy of their younger audiences, the recent Family Center feature added by Discord speaks to a growing movement in the tech world to ensure digital safety for all users. Parental control mechanisms demonstrate applications' crucial responsibility in creating safe spaces for their customers, especially the younger generation navigating the digital landscape on their devices.
