Signaling commitment to safety and privacy, Snapchat hires head of safety control to its platform.
Key details
Snap Inc. has hired Jacqueline Beauchere, the current chief online safety officer at Microsoft, to be its first-ever global head of platform safety, according to Axios.
In the role as head of safety, Beauchere will oversee all of Snapchat’s efforts around safety. She will also help advise on the development of new policies and guidelines, features, and tools around safety and well-being.
“We are committed to helping parents, stakeholders, and advocates understand how young people experience our products and how we approach critical issues around safety and trust,” says Snap VP of global policy Jennifer Stout.
Why it’s news
Snapchat has been working to make it easier for parents to monitor kids’ social-media activity by introducing tools to allow better supervision of teen behavior for parents or trusted adults on its popular disappearing photo and video app.
Last year, Snap announced it was working on a new parental control feature for its popular social media app.
The new tool, called Family Center, lets designated adults over the age of 25 view their teens’ friends, see who they’ve messaged in the past week, and anonymously report abusive accounts. They will not be able to see snaps, chats, or time spent by the teen on the app. Snap notes the feature is only available to parents and teens aged 13 through 18 as the app is not meant to be used by younger users.
Backing up a bit
Family Center has been in the works for over a year, taking input from researchers and online safety experts, as well as running focus groups with teens and parents, Snap says. Ultimately, the design is meant to mimic the oversight a parent or caregiver may have in real life: Knowing who a teen is spending time with so they can intervene when necessary, without being privy to the content of conversations, reports Bloomberg.
The new tools became available earlier in the month in the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.