Meta Expands Parental Controls on Threads in India Amid Child Safety Concerns
Meta has expanded parental supervision features to Threads in India, giving parents and guardians new tools to manage how teenagers use the social media platform. The rollout is part of Meta’s wider effort to introduce more consistent safety and supervision features across its applications. The company announced that parental supervision for Threads is being rolled out across Asia-Pacific, including India.
Through Meta’s Family Center, parents can check how much time their teenager spends on Threads, set daily usage limits and restrict access during selected days or hours. They can also adjust Sleep Mode, manage who can tag their child and oversee certain privacy and sensitive-content settings.
Stronger Protections Through Teen Accounts
The new parental controls build on Threads’ existing Teen Accounts, which provide automatic protections for younger users. These include private account settings and restrictions on the content that teenagers can see.
Meta has also introduced additional control for users under 16. Parents can decide whether their teenagers should be allowed to make certain safety settings less restrictive. This gives families a greater role in determining how much freedom a younger user has over their account settings.
The supervision system also provides parents with information about their teenager's Threads usage during the previous week. Where supervision is enabled, parents can see daily usage and the average amount of time spent on the platform.
Limiting Late-Night Social Media Use
One of the notable features is the ability to adjust Threads' Sleep Mode. Parents can limit or block access to Threads during nighttime hours, while notifications are muted and automatic replies are enabled by default between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m.
The feature is aimed at helping families manage late-night social media use while giving parents more control over when the platform can be accessed. Parents can also apply time limits across devices, meaning the limit takes into account total Threads usage rather than activity on only one device.
Part of Meta's Wider Teen Safety Measures
The Threads update is not an isolated measure. Meta has been expanding parental supervision and Teen Account protections across Instagram, Facebook, Messenger and other services. In 2026, the company introduced additional tools that allow parents to gain more insight into the topics their teenagers interact with and manage supervision from Family Center.
Meta has also introduced measures aimed at identifying situations in which teenagers may require additional support. On Instagram, supervising parents in India can receive notifications when their teen repeatedly searches for terms related to suicide or self-harm within a short period.
India's Growing Focus on Children's Digital Safety
The move comes as online child safety and protection of children's personal information receive increasing attention in India. The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 defines a child as an individual who has not completed 18 years of age and establishes specific requirements concerning the processing of children's personal data.
India's Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025 have also been published by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, forming part of the country's developing framework for protecting personal data in the digital environment.
For social media platforms, this broader framework makes issues such as privacy, age-appropriate experiences, parental involvement and responsible handling of children's data increasingly important.
A Wider Conversation Around Online Safety
The expansion of parental controls reflects the changing role of social media platforms in teenagers' daily lives. Features such as time limits, nighttime restrictions, privacy controls and content protections can give parents additional tools to guide younger users.
At the same time, parental supervision is only one element of online safety. Effective protection also involves appropriate content moderation, age assurance, privacy safeguards, reporting mechanisms and cooperation between technology companies, families and authorities.
The MGMM Outlook
Meta’s expansion of parental supervision features to Threads in India is a useful step toward creating a safer digital environment for teenagers. Tools that allow parents to monitor usage time, set daily limits, control nighttime access, manage tagging and oversee privacy and sensitive-content settings can help families guide younger users more responsibly. The extension of Teen Account protections and additional controls for users under 16 also gives parents a greater role in deciding how much freedom teenagers should have over certain safety settings.
These measures are particularly relevant as digital platforms become an increasingly important part of young people’s lives and India continues to develop stronger safeguards for children’s personal data and online experiences. Parental supervision, privacy protection, age-appropriate content and responsible platform practices can work together to provide teenagers with safer access to social media while giving families greater confidence and control. The Threads update therefore represents another step toward strengthening digital safety for younger users in India.
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