Meta Rolls Out Parental Supervision Tools on Instagram

The Instagram application is seen on a phone screen August 3, 2017. (Reuters)
The Instagram application is seen on a phone screen August 3, 2017. (Reuters)
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Meta Rolls Out Parental Supervision Tools on Instagram

The Instagram application is seen on a phone screen August 3, 2017. (Reuters)
The Instagram application is seen on a phone screen August 3, 2017. (Reuters)

Facebook owner Meta Platforms Inc will allow parents to track how much time their children are spending on Instagram and will soon roll out parental supervision features on Quest virtual reality headsets, the company said on Wednesday.

The new parental controls are part of Meta's promise to protect children using its social media apps, after a whistleblower leaked internal documents that showed the company was aware that Instagram caused body image problems for some teenage girls.

The uproar resulting from the leaked documents led to Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, testifying before Congress in December, where he was grilled about children's safety online.

The Instagram supervision tools will be available in the United States beginning Wednesday and will roll out globally over the coming months, Meta said.

Parents will be able to view what accounts their children follow and can set time limits for how long their kids spend on the app.

In May, Meta will launch a dashboard that includes supervision tools for its Quest headsets and will automatically block teens from downloading age-inappropriate apps on Quest.

Parental supervision on both Instagram and Quest will require consent from teens, Meta said in a blog post.

The company added it plans to eventually allow parents to oversee their kids' activities across all of Meta's services from one central place.



DeepSeek Faces Expulsion from App Stores in Germany

FILE - The smartphone apps DeepSeek page is seen on a smartphone screen in Beijing, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File)
FILE - The smartphone apps DeepSeek page is seen on a smartphone screen in Beijing, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File)
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DeepSeek Faces Expulsion from App Stores in Germany

FILE - The smartphone apps DeepSeek page is seen on a smartphone screen in Beijing, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File)
FILE - The smartphone apps DeepSeek page is seen on a smartphone screen in Beijing, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File)

Germany has taken steps towards blocking Chinese AI startup DeepSeek from the Apple and Google app stores due to concerns about data protection, according to a data protection authority commissioner in a statement on Friday.

DeepSeek has been reported to the two US tech giants as illegal content, said commissioner Meike Kamp, and the companies must now review the concerns and decide whether to block the app in Germany, Reuters reported.

"DeepSeek has not been able to provide my agency with convincing evidence that German users' data is protected in China to a level equivalent to that in the European Union," she said.

"Chinese authorities have far-reaching access rights to personal data within the sphere of influence of Chinese companies," she added.

The move comes after Reuters exclusively reported this week that DeepSeek is aiding China's military and intelligence operations.

DeepSeek, which shook the technology world in January with claims that it had developed an AI model that rivaled those from US firms such as ChatGPT creator OpenAI at much lower cost, says it stores numerous personal data, such as requests to the AI or uploaded files, on computers in China.