HOUSTON – With growing concerns from parents about children and the impacts social media has, Meta is unveiling additional supervision features limited to certain regions; one of them is Texas.
This all comes as part of legislative acts like the Securing Children Online Through Parental Empowerment (SCOPE) Act, which is meant to enhance protections against harmful online practices. Primarily, the SCOPE Act is focused on regulating online platforms and marketplaces to prevent deceptive or dangerous product listings.
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Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram says on its website, that certain regions have laws where parents are given the right to set up “extra supervision features.” Some of those features, according to Meta include:
- The ability to see how much time their teen spends on Facebook and Messenger and set time limits.
- The ability to see and update their teen’s settings.
- The ability to choose whether or not their teen can make payments.
- The ability to download their teen’s information.
- The ability to delete their teen’s account.
To access these extra supervised features, parents have to upload a few documents to confirm their own identity including a valid government ID, or two forms of non-government IDs.
The confirming process could take up to 48 hours and Meta says once that has been completed, parents can invite their teens to set up those extra supervision features.
“They’ll be asked to confirm that you’re their parent or guardian before features are set up. If your teen doesn’t confirm that you’re their parent or guardian, or they don’t respond within 48 hours, you can invite them again. If your teen remains unresponsive or doesn’t confirm, you can set up supervision features by providing us with more information like their birth certificate.”
Parents are also able to manage these supervision features including removing it at any time. This will apply to the added extra features under Texas law and be removed when you remove supervision. Once a teenager has turned 18 (or the relevant age based on a respective region) those extra supervision features will be removed.
“If your teen moves to a region that does not provide extra supervision features, these features will be removed. If they move to a region that provides different supervision features, the supervision features you have access to will be updated. We’ll notify you when this happens.”