Snapchat is rolling out a 'Family Center' tool allowing parents to monitor who their children are in communication with. Social Good Reporter from Mashable, Chase DiBenedetto, joined us on 'Wake Up With Cheddar' to discuss this news in the tech world and how parents can help keep their kids safe online. Watch! 

Wake Up With Cheddar

How To Protect Your Kids On Social Media 

but in tech news, Snapchat is rolling out an option to let parents see who their teams are talking to. The new tools called family center and joining us for industry inside about this tool as well as discuss how other social media platforms may be. Following suit is Mashable's social good reporter. Cool title Chase Di Benedetto. So what benefits you see coming from Snapchat making this decision to allow parents to more closely monitor who their Children interact with And are there any cons with this? Yeah, absolutely. Um, so Snapchat is an app that was created based on fleeting moments, things disappear, videos, pictures, chats, and that makes it hard to safely safely monitor kids activity on the app. So any move towards enabling more safety precautions is a good thing. Um, however, there's kind of this loop, the question um, across any future like this, which is why are we putting this responsibility on parents? They already have a tough job. They have a lot to do. Um, and also they don't have every resource to monitor everything that their child does online. Um, Historically, Children use the internet in ways that they don't want their parents to know about. Not always in unsafe ways, but you know, they don't want their parents to know everything about them. Um, so parents will never be able to effectively fully monitor their Children's activity online. Um, so the con to this is that companies should really be continuing to take on the onus and the responsibility of protecting young people online and not, you know, offloading it onto parents couldn't agree with you more. Well, according to snap the features quote meant to copy real life relationships like when a parent lets the kids friend come over but doesn't monitor everything they say. Do you think the controls go far enough or is this an appropriate starting point? I definitely think it's a starting point. Um I think the benefit of these features that it opens communication between parents and Children. Um I also think it's really positive that a lot of these features have been done in collaboration with nonprofits and organizations nationwide who do this full time protecting Children online and protecting their mental health online. Um, so it enables parents with tools and with talking points um, conversation starters to get them in the room with their Children talking about online safety, um informing them about the tools that they have and also creating a positive environment where Children can come to their parents um and talk about what's making them uncomfortable online. Sorry, catching up. But snap did take a lot of heat for those videos and pictures going away. But now, what other social media platforms such as meta and Tiktok are doing to help parents and minors protect themselves? Yeah, Earlier this year, Metal launched its own family center focused on instagram and that's like a desktop oriented um education hub and dashboard where parents can see um their Children's activity um monitor followers and see if any accounts or posts are being reported um by Children. Uh, they're similar to Snapchat in the sense that this is an often feature, so youth um, accounts have to approve that their parents are monitoring them. I think that's crucial. I think the idea of consent is necessary and it's like I said earlier, building that trust. Um, and then over on Tiktok, which I think is kind of the app Fourteens right now. They also last year introduced parental controls that ad a bit of safety I think for minor accounts on Tiktok there's a little bit more tools they can't privately d m which is kind of where all of the craziness happens on the internet. Um, parents can monitor screen time, things like that. My niece is turning to and my sister and brother in law are giving her her first phone and I freaked out. So what advice do you give to parents, what additional advice to make sure their Children are protected online. Um, I think like I said earlier, opening those avenues of communication, like being very clear with your Children. Um, this is what can happen online is how we're going to protect you as parents. Here's how you can protect yourself. Um, opening up those avenues also um like I said earlier with these nonprofit collaborations, um giving that resources, those resources to your Children as well. Um allowing them to read on it and giving them a sense of agency and their online presence there. You know, Children are always more receptive when you give them a bit of control as well. Agreed. Well, thank you to Social Good Reporter for Mashable Chase. Di Benedetto that very important expert insight that will be beneficial I know to families all around the world.