As part of its ongoing initiative to promote youth safety online, Instagram is rolling out its Parent Supervision Tools and the Family Center, which is a place for parents and guardians to access helpful articles, videos and tips on topics like how to talk to teens about social media, and how to use the supervision tools available on Instagram.

Through the Family Center, parents and guardians have access to insights about how their teens use Instagram.

Meta’s Family Center will serve as a hub where parents and guardians can access resources to help young people build positive online habits. The Family Center was launched after extensive consultation with parents, guardians, young people and experts from government, academic and non-profit organisations in Asia Pacific including Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. Experts were convened to discuss best practices towards empowering teens to make healthy decisions for self-supervision, building trusted networks of support for help with supervision and supporting families to create boundaries for safe use together.

“Today’s updates are in addition to the improvements we’ve made over the last year, including helping teens have safer and more private experiences, restricting how advertisers can reach young people, understanding users’ real age, and providing teens with more tools to better manage their Instagram experience. Over time, we hope the Family Center will allow parents and guardians to help their teens manage experiences across Meta technologies from once central place,” said Philip Chua, Head of Instagram Public Policy, APAC.

“We want young people to have an experience that is both fun and safe when using our apps, and we want to support their parents to assist them in doing this. Our intention is for these tools and resources to strike the right balance between young people’s expectations for autonomy, whilst allowing for parents and caregivers to support their teen online,” he said.

Prior to the launch of these tools in Malaysia, Instagram had engaged in a roundtable discussion with several key local stakeholders which included representatives from international and local NGOs, media representatives, parents and young people who shared their experience, concerns and what they hope to see in a digitally-literate society.

During the session, Shermaine Sim from UNICEF Malaysia said, “A healthy relationship between parents and teens will allow for a healthy trust and control dynamic between them. If teens have a lot of trust with their parents, they should have no problem communicating their need for independence. Similarly, if parents have a lot of trust for teens, they will be confident to allow their children to have control.

Tools like these encourage such relationships, resulting in more control for both parent and teen.” Hilal Azmi, producer and news editor at Astro Awani said, “Many parents are not aware of the resources available to them in supervising and protecting their children’s safety in the online space. This is particularly true for parents in the rural areas. In addition, the subject of online scams can be traumatising for parents and teens, which hinders reporting. The society shall not discriminate against victims of online abuse. Parents too should be aware of their own online behaviour in order to set a good example for their children.”

Instagram is also working with host and actress Daphne Iking and actor Dato’ Aaron Aziz to share their experience as parents to teens who are active on social media. They will be sharing informative content on their social media platform, on ways to utilise Instagram Parental Supervision Tool, to nurture positive online experience to their children.

The new Supervision Features that will be available in Malaysia from September 16 onwards include:

• Connections made: Overview on new connections your teen makes on Instagram, who your teen follows and who follows them
• Time on Instagram: Daily time limits and scheduled breaks during the week to help your teen balance their time on Instagram.
• Teen to parent reporting: Your teen can notify you if they make a report on Instagram so that you can discuss it together.

To learn how to set-up the Supervision Tools visit our website.