Meta has introduced new parental supervision features on its social platform Threads, aiming to give parents greater control over their teens' activity. Announced on July 21, 2026, these tools allow guardians to monitor the time their teens spend on Threads, set daily limits, activate sleep mode during designated hours, and manage privacy settings. The features tie into Meta’s Family Center, which serves as a centralized hub for parental controls across its various apps, and come amid mounting legislative and regulatory pressure to enhance child safety online.

The update enables parents to see daily usage statistics for the past week including average daily time, and impose limits that apply across all devices if teens access Threads from multiple sources. Nighttime restrictions are built-in, with notifications muted and automatic replies enabled between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. Parents can also regulate who can tag their teens in posts. While Meta already enforces protections like private accounts and content filters for users under 16, the new controls give parents the authority to decide whether teens can alter these settings to make them less strict.

Threads, which launched in July 2023 and now boasts 500 million monthly users, has not offered such parental supervision until now. Meta’s move reflects a broader effort over recent years to fortify parental oversight and safeguard young users from issues like excessive screen time and exposure to harmful content. The company is concurrently facing multiple lawsuits concerning child safety, increasing the impetus behind rolling out these measures.

The parental supervision tools will initially be available in the U.S. starting next week, with plans to expand globally by year-end. Meta highlights that these controls are part of its ongoing strategy to address public and governmental concerns about teen well-being on social media, aiming to balance user privacy with parental involvement on popular platforms like Threads.