Threads adds parental controls for teens next week

Meta is adding parental supervision tools to Threads, extending the same Family Center controls it has been building across its apps as pressure mounts from regulators and lawmakers over teen safety online.

The new tools will let parents and guardians see how much time their teen spends on Threads, set daily time limits, adjust sleep mode, and manage certain privacy settings. According to Meta, parents will be able to review a teen’s usage for each day over the past week, along with the average daily time spent for that period.

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Parents will also be able to block access during selected days and hours. If a teen uses Threads on multiple devices, such as a phone and laptop, the limit will apply to the total time spent across those devices.

Meta said parents can also restrict or block nighttime access. For teens, notifications are already muted and auto-replies are on by default from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. In addition, parents will be able to control who can tag their teen in posts.

The company says teens on Threads already have built-in protections, including private accounts and limits on the content they can see. With this update, parents can also decide whether teens under 16 are allowed to make those automatic settings less strict.

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The rollout begins next week in the U.S. A Meta spokesperson told TechCrunch that parental supervision on Threads is planned to expand globally by the end of the year.

The move comes as Meta faces broader scrutiny over child safety, including multiple lawsuits tied to harms to young users. Threads now has 500 million monthly users, and the new controls arrive three years after the app’s launch in July 2023.