New Discord safety feature gives parents control over teen contacts
▼ Summary
– Discord is expanding Family Center safety controls with increased visibility of teen activity, content filtering options, and DM controls.
– Guardians can now restrict teen DMs to friends only or server members while maintaining message privacy.
– Teens can notify guardians when reporting users, and activity summaries now include purchases, call minutes, and top interactions.
– Family Center remains voluntary, requiring teen consent through QR codes and showing activity overviews without direct server/friend control.
– These updates respond to growing online safety pressures, including age verification initiatives and legislative proposals like the Kids Online Safety Act.
Discord is enhancing its Family Center with a suite of new safety tools designed to give parents and guardians greater oversight of their teenagers’ online interactions. These updates focus on improving visibility into teen activity while respecting user privacy, offering a balanced approach to digital safety. Parents can now manage who is allowed to send direct messages to their teens, choosing between contacts limited to friends or expanded to include members of shared servers. Despite this increased oversight, the actual content of private messages remains inaccessible to guardians, preserving a degree of confidentiality for young users.
Another significant addition allows teens to alert their parents automatically whenever they report another user for misconduct. While the specifics of the report stay private, this feature encourages transparency and ensures guardians are aware when their child encounters a problematic situation. The activity summary within Family Center has also been expanded, now displaying metrics such as total purchases, call minutes, and frequently interacted users and servers over a rolling seven-day period. Both teens and their guardians have access to the same summary information, promoting open communication about online habits.
It’s important to note that participation in Family Center remains entirely optional. Teens must initiate the setup process by providing a QR code for their parent or guardian to scan, followed by approving the connection from their own account. This ensures that teens maintain agency over whether and how their activity is shared. The tool offers an overview of behavior patterns but does not permit parents to directly manage server memberships or friend lists, those decisions stay with the teen.
These expanded safety measures arrive as online platforms face growing scrutiny over youth protection. Discord has recently rolled out age verification in select markets and was represented during Senate hearings where social media executives addressed concerns about cyberbullying and exploitation. With legislative proposals like the Kids Online Safety Act gaining traction, Discord and its peers are proactively developing in-house solutions to demonstrate their commitment to user safety without awaiting regulatory mandates.
(Source: The Verge)
