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Snapchat’s New Controls Could Let Parents See Their Kids’ Friend Lists
Christian Hetrick
Christian Hetrick is dot.LA's Entertainment Tech Reporter. He was formerly a business reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and reported on New Jersey politics for the Observer and the Press of Atlantic City.
Snapchat is preparing to roll out enhanced parental controls that would allow parents to see who their teenagers are chatting with on the social media app, according to screenshots of the upcoming feature.
Snap’s parental controls.
Courtesy of Watchful.
Snapchat is planning to introduce Family Center, which would allow parents to see who their children are friends with on the app and who they’ve messaged within the last seven days, according to screenshots provided by Watchful, a product intelligence company. Parents would also be able help their kids report abuse or harassment.
The parental controls are still subject to change before finally launching publicly, as the Family Center screenshots—which were first reported by TechCrunch—reflect features that are still under development.
Santa Monica-based Snap and other social media giants have faced mounting criticism for not doing more to protect their younger users—some of whom have been bullied, sold deadly drugs and sexually exploited on their platforms. State attorneys general have urged Snap and Culver City-based TikTok to strengthen their parental controls, with both companies’ apps especially popular among teens.
A Snap spokesperson declined to comment on Friday. Previously, Snap representatives have told dot.LA that the company is developing tools that will provide parents with more insight into how their children are engaging on Snapchat and allow them to report troubling content. (Disclosure: Snap is an investor in dot.LA.)
Yet Snap’s approach to parental controls could still give teens some privacy, as parents wouldn’t be able to read the actual content of their kids’ conversations, according to TechCrunch. (The Family Center screenshots seen by dot.LA do not detail whether parents can see those conversations).
In addition, teenage users would first have to accept an invitation from their parents to join the in-app Family Center before those parents can begin monitoring their social media activity, TechCrunch reported.
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Christian Hetrick
Christian Hetrick is dot.LA's Entertainment Tech Reporter. He was formerly a business reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and reported on New Jersey politics for the Observer and the Press of Atlantic City.
Upfront Ventures Summit: The Chainsmokers Journey From Music to Venture
02:16 PM | March 02, 2023
Clark Studio
On Thursday, Upfront Ventures hosted its 2023 Summit and music icons Alex Pall and Drew Taggart of The Chainsmokers hit the stage, not to perform, but instead to discuss their venture journey.
The duo launched MantisVC, a Marina Del Rey-based early stage tech venture fund in 2019.
Pall and Taggart shared the stage with WndrCo’s managing partner Jeffrey Katzenberg to dive deeper into what their music career has taught them and how it translated over to their venture firm.
Here are some of the most important takeaways:
The duo believes hustle is more important than talent to achieve success.
“There's just so much content out there that's just happening all the time for no reason,” Taggart said. “There's just so much to pay attention to and if you have to wake up every day, and think out what your angle is going to be, try stuff, have it not work. You have to accept defeat so frequently and still get up and do it.”
Creating music was their foray into building communities.
“I think we have some real insight into how to build that community and tell that story because essentially, that's all we're trying to do,” Pall said. “No matter what your business is, you're telling the story about something that you think is important that someone else needs and will enjoy.”
Building connections and having conversations with pioneers in the space helped them launch MantisVC.
“Humility and being self aware are two of our strengths,” Taggart said. “I think knowing what we don't know is a big part of how we've gotten to where we are, and with the support of people around us, and the relationships we built, we understood that we were going to have to go out and prove to the world that we were serious about this and we respected the people that have come before us and the people that are doing it right now.”
VCs should offer all their founders support.
“When you're building something early on, you want that support, that hands-on feeling and the purpose of Mantis isn't necessarily right now to replace the incredible institutional investors that exist out there and have been around for a while,” Pall continued.
“But we want to be the Robin to their Batman, and we think there's a way that we can kind of partner with everybody in the space and provide our founders that holistic support they need. It's inspiring to work alongside people that share that same energy and we're constantly working on ourselves and I feel like it takes a really special type of human being to be successful in this world. Level of grit and determination and something that's continually fueled us and we want to invest in people like that.”
Feedback is necessary and essential to create successful products and businesses.
“Similar to products or services that you're building, it's important to get real life feedback out there and iterate on those things,” Taggart said. “And there's really just no substitute for that.”
Pall added, “I think for some reason in our culture, it's become an issue for people just to be straightforward and say no, about things and give honest feedback and, and move on. I think we can all learn a lot from just having more honest conversations with each other.”
Never lose sight of your core audience and mission as a company.
“Never forget what your core product is and what people love about that and make sure that every piece of innovation is derivative of that,” Taggart said. “I see a lot of friends of ours that have had really successful companies start to build ancillary projects that don't really feed their core audience that they're just making to compete with their competition. We do the same thing in songwriting, and you can never lose sight of what people love about you.”
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Decerry Donato
Decerry Donato is a reporter at dot.LA. Prior to that, she was an editorial fellow at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.
FaZe Clan is Finally Embracing Women’s Esports Over a Decade After its Founding
05:05 AM | March 15, 2023
Photo: FaZe Clan
FaZe Clan signed its first all-female esports team last week, and the five-woman team will begin competing this year in a spinoff of Riot Games’ “Valorant” pro league.
This is the first all-female esports team FaZe’s invested in since its 2010 launch. Before signing with FaZe, the five pro players – Jennifer “refinnej” Le, Emma “emy” Choe, Vannesa Emely “panini” Emory, Madison “maddiesuun” Mann and Diane “di^” Tran – first became teammates while competing in Riot’s “Valorant” North American Champions Tour last year under the team name Hamboigas.
The fivesome won’t compete in the pro “Valorant” league since that’s all-men. But they will make their debut as a FaZe team this year competing in a spinoff of the league called “VCT Game Changers,” which was created last February by Riot Games to offer new opportunities for “women and other marginalized genders” in its esports community. The esports industry largely still has yet to embrace co-ed esports at a professional level, though many collegiate programs under the National Association of College Esports do. This has led some esports fans to wrongly speculate that it’s just a skill issue and that female pros just aren’t good enough to play on pro teams.
Erik Anderson, FaZe’s head of esports since 2016, said the organization went “out of our way” to make it clear in the announcements that this was a FaZe team just like its other all-male ones. Anderson said FaZe tried to make it clear in the branding that the all-women team didn’t seem like “some other sub-brand… they’re part of FaZe Clan, it’s not some sort of spin-off.”
Anderson wouldn’t directly say why FaZe waited so long to sign female pros, but claimed it was partly waiting for the right opportunity. Anderson noted “Game Changers itself is a pretty new structure,” having launched in 2021.
But Anderson hopes Riot will continue to update “Valorant,” adding he hopes to see it move into collegiate competitions which could further democratize its player base and encourage new women to consider becoming pros at it.
Prior to signing the quintet, FaZe had one other female gamer on staff, a content creator named Kalei Renay who joined in 2021 and boasts over half a million followers on Twitch. But until now, the organization that’s nearing its 13th birthday has remained largely male-dominated.
Still, FaZe figured that it was better late than never to diversify its ranks. All five players are represented by the same agent, who pitched them as a package deal to various esports outfits looking to recruit more women. Each player wouldn’t disclose contract terms but Emory told dot.LA “FaZe pays us very well, and compared to my last contracts it's technically been more or [about] the same.”
The company’s staring down the barrel of a potential stock delisting, having seen over 95% of its value wiped out since its $725 million IPO last August. Still, its audience remains loyal and demanding new content. “We got a great response from our community” about the all-female team, Anderson said.
Tran added however that she’s optimistic that this team can help change how gaming treats female pros, and noted that over the years as esports has grown in popularity, the acceptance of women in the field has too. “You do face discrimination no matter what in gaming, just because it’s a male-dominated area,” Tran said. “But I do think it’s gotten better and now to be competing as [a] female, I don’t think it's actually as bad as you would think.”
Emory, who splits her time between the Bay Area and Los Angeles, agreed. “Now on ‘Valorant’ you can't type certain things and you just get chat banned,” she said. Adding that, “moderation has gotten so much better. People just get banned left and right, there’s certain words you can’t even type anymore. I think Riot’s doing a really good job… and I’d say the moderation has gotten a lot better, because in other games you really didn’t really have that luxury.”
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Samson Amore
Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.
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