The wait is over: Threads gets parental controls
Nearly three years after Threads launched in July 2023, Meta is finally rolling out parental supervision tools for the platform. Starting next week in the U.S., parents and guardians will be able to monitor and manage their teen’s activity on the app through Meta’s Family Center — the same hub that already controls settings across Instagram and Facebook.
The move comes as Meta faces mounting pressure from regulators and lawmakers over teen safety. The company has been expanding parental controls across its apps for years, and Threads — now boasting 500 million monthly users — was a glaring gap. Lawsuits from multiple states and child safety advocates have only sharpened the spotlight.
So what can parents actually do? Quite a bit, it turns out.
Screen time tracking and daily limits
Parents will see exactly how much time their teen spends on Threads each day for the past week, including a weekly average. They can then set a daily time limit — and crucially, that limit applies across all devices. If a teen switches from phone to laptop, the clock keeps ticking.
Here’s what the new Threads parental supervision dashboard offers:
- Daily time limit: Set a maximum number of minutes per day. Total time across devices is counted.
- Sleep mode: Block or limit access during specific hours, especially at night. Meta already mutes notifications and turns on auto-replies for all teens from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m., but parents can tighten this further.
- Privacy controls: Manage who can tag the teen in posts. Parents can also decide whether teens under 16 are allowed to change their default privacy settings — like private accounts — to something less restrictive.
Meta says teens on Threads already have built-in protections: private accounts by default, and limits on the content they see. But now parents have the final say on whether those settings can be loosened.
Why now? The pressure on Meta is real
It’s no secret that social media companies are under fire. Meta, along with TikTok, Snap, and others, faces a wave of lawsuits from states and school districts alleging that their platforms harm teens’ mental health. The U.S. Senate has held multiple hearings, and the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) is moving through Congress.
Threads was an obvious weak spot. While Instagram and Facebook have had parental controls for years, the text-based platform — which Meta positioned as a Twitter alternative — had none. For a company that says it prioritizes teen safety, that was a hard gap to explain.
Now, with these tools, Meta can argue that Threads is no longer the Wild West for teens. But critics note that supervision tools only work if parents actually use them — and many don’t.
What about the rest of the world?
The rollout starts in the U.S. next week. Meta told TechCrunch it plans to bring Threads parental supervision globally by the end of 2025. No specific countries or dates have been announced yet.
For parents outside the U.S., that means waiting — but not forever. And for teens? Well, the days of unlimited late-night scrolling on Threads may be numbered.
The bigger picture: Are parental controls enough?
Parental supervision tools are a step forward, but they’re not a silver bullet. A time limit doesn’t stop a teen from seeing harmful content during the minutes they are online. And Meta’s own research has shown that teens often find ways around parental controls — using friends’ phones, for example.
Still, the Threads parental supervision rollout is a meaningful addition. It gives parents a window into their teen’s digital habits, and a way to set boundaries without confiscating the phone entirely. For a platform that grew to half a billion users in less than three years, that kind of oversight was long overdue.
Whether it will satisfy regulators — or the parents filing lawsuits — is another question entirely.
