Through the “Family Center” feature, a Saudi partnership with “Snapchat” to reduce inappropriate content

The General Authority for Audiovisual Media in Saudi Arabia announced a joint cooperation with the "Snapchat" application, to launch the "Family Center", which enables parents to protect their children while using the application.

The service was officially launched yesterday, Monday, at the headquarters of the Audio-Visual Content Authority in Saudi Arabia, in the presence of representatives from the global Snap company, as Saudi Arabia is the first Arab country and the second globally after Germany, which provides the service.

The authority announced, in a statement on its official website, that the new service will allow parents to control their children's activities more over the Internet, by viewing their friends list and their circle of communication.

Parents will be able to follow the people the child follows and report any abusive or inappropriate account to the Snapchat platform at any time, but the service does not allow access to personal messages to provide the required amount of privacy and independence for children.

The CEO of the Saudi Audiovisual Media Authority, Israa Asiri, confirmed that cooperating with Snapchat to launch the Family Center is one of the steps through which the authority seeks to provide content platforms that guarantee privacy and security for users.

Snapchat is one of the most used social networking applications in Saudi Arabia, with 20 million monthly active users.

Saudi Arabia had taken a number of steps in order to control the content presented on digital platforms, the most prominent of which was a joint statement with the Gulf Cooperation Council calling on “Netflix” to review its content presented in the region, taking into account its compatibility with Islamic values ​​and morals, and calling on the two media authorities. The Saudi audio-visual and communications "YouTube", last July, removed ads that contained content that violated Islamic values ​​and principles and the media content controls in force in the Kingdom.

Saudi bloggers and activists, via communication platforms, praised the commission's steps, stressing the need to take more steps to provide more security and privacy online.

Content provided to children is one of the thorny issues facing social media, as many countries are taking strict steps to protect children and prevent their access to inappropriate content.