Snap expanded Family Center features two days after settling an addiction lawsuit, a move particularly relevant to the Middle East where Snapchat dominates youth engagement more than anywhere else globally.
Snap has rolled out new parental monitoring features for its Family Center tool, allowing parents to track how much time teens spend on Snapchat and see details about new friend connections. The announcement came two days after the company settled a lawsuit accusing it of designing features that fueled social media addiction and mental health harm among young users, highlighting mounting pressure around platform safety that extends well beyond the United States and carries particular weight in the Middle East, where Snapchat has built deeper penetration than in nearly any other region globally.
Parents using Family Center can now view the average daily time their teen spent on Snapchat over the previous week, with usage broken down by activity type including chatting, snapping, camera use, Snap Map navigation, and content consumption on Spotlight and Stories. The feature provides visibility into patterns without revealing conversation content, maintaining what Snap describes as a balance between parental oversight and teen privacy. Parents can also see how their teen likely knows a new contact they have added as a friend, with indicators showing whether they share mutual friends, are saved as contacts, or belong to shared communities. Snap said these trust signals make it easier for parents to understand new connections and have confidence their teen is chatting with someone they know offline.
The update arrives at a moment when regulators across the Gulf are sharpening their focus on digital safety for minors. The UAE issued Federal Decree Law No. 26 of 2025 on Child Digital Safety in late December, establishing a comprehensive framework that requires digital platforms operating in or targeting users in the Emirates to implement default privacy settings, age verification tools, content filtering, and robust parental controls. The law, which came into force in January 2026 with a one-year grace period for compliance, applies to social media platforms, gaming services, streaming apps, and e-commerce sites regardless of whether they maintain a physical presence in the UAE. Platforms must also restrict the collection and use of personal data from children under 13 and provide mechanisms to limit excessive engagement, including usage limits and mandatory breaks.
The regulatory push matters particularly in the Middle East because Snapchat enjoys extraordinarily high penetration rates in the region that dwarf its global footprint. Saudi Arabia leads globally with approximately 87 to 88 percent of its eligible population aged 13 and above on Snapchat, according to data from DataReportal and Statista, while the UAE follows with roughly 49 percent penetration. Over 90 percent of young Saudis aged 13 to 34 actively use the platform, opening the app an average of 50 times per day and spending around 35 minutes daily engaging with content, figures that exceed Snapchat's global averages of 30 daily opens and similar time spent, according to industry research published by Thunder. The app reaches more than 24 million users in Saudi Arabia alone as of early 2025, according to DataReportal's Saudi Arabia Digital 2025 report, making it one of the top six markets worldwide by total audience size.
Snap launched Family Center in 2022 as regulators and lawmakers increased scrutiny over how social media companies protect minors. The tool has been expanded over time to include features allowing parents to see who teens recently interacted with, set time restrictions, and block access to the My AI chatbot. The latest additions build on that foundation by surfacing granular usage data and contextual information about friend networks, areas where parents have pressed for greater transparency as concerns about screen time, online safety, and mental health have intensified.
The timing of the announcement underscores the link between legal exposure and product development. Snap settled a lawsuit filed by a 19-year-old identified in court documents as K.G.M., who accused the company and other social media platforms including Meta, YouTube, and TikTok of designing algorithms and features that caused addiction and harmed mental health. The settlement was reached earlier in the week, though terms were not disclosed. The remaining defendants, including Meta, TikTok, and YouTube, are still facing the lawsuit, with jury selection scheduled to begin soon. Snap remains a defendant in additional social media addiction cases, and documents disclosed in ongoing litigation revealed that Snap employees raised concerns about risks to teens' mental health as far back as nine years ago, though the company has said those examples were cherry-picked and taken out of context.
The Middle East's regulatory environment is evolving rapidly around child safety and digital content. Saudi Arabia has also moved to restrict how children are featured in influencer content, with new guidelines effectively banning minors from appearing in monetized social media posts, a shift that has reshaped the country's family vlogging and lifestyle content economy. The Kingdom's influencer economy was valued at more than $1.3 billion in 2024, with family and lifestyle content accounting for a significant share, making the regulatory changes economically consequential for creators and platforms alike.
For Snapchat, compliance with the UAE's new law and similar frameworks emerging across the region will require more than surface-level adjustments. The UAE legislation mandates that platforms implement age verification aligned with risk levels, deploy proactive content monitoring using artificial intelligence and machine learning, provide clear reporting mechanisms for harmful content, and immediately report child exploitation material to authorities. Internet service providers in the UAE are required to activate network-level content filtering and ensure parental supervision mechanisms are in place, including mandatory acceptance of terms by a child's guardian. The law also establishes a Child Digital Safety Council, chaired by the Minister of Family, to propose policy, coordinate implementation across government entities, and monitor emerging digital risks.
Snap's regional footprint makes compliance particularly pressing. The platform opened its first Middle East office in Dubai and has been rumored to be considering a second location in Riyadh as it deepens its commercial presence in the Gulf. Saudi users engage with augmented reality features at extraordinarily high rates, with 85 percent of Snapchatters in Saudi Arabia and the UAE interacting with AR daily, and 97 percent of users in both markets reporting they have discovered new products via Snapchat ads, according to regional usage data. The platform has become a primary channel for shopping and brand discovery among young, affluent consumers in the region, with 93 percent of users sharing brands they like with friends, figures that highlight the platform's commercial and cultural relevance.
Competitors in the social media space are facing similar pressure. Instagram and TikTok have also implemented parental supervision tools and content restrictions in response to regulatory demands and public concern over youth safety. Meta introduced Family Center for Instagram and Quest VR headsets, allowing parents to set time limits, block apps, and review friend requests. TikTok has rolled out screen time management features, restricted direct messaging for younger users, and introduced a family pairing mode that lets parents link their account to their teen's account to manage settings remotely.
The legal and regulatory landscape around social media and minors remains fragmented globally, but the Gulf region's combination of high platform penetration, strong regulatory capacity, and cultural sensitivities around child protection is creating a testing ground for how platforms balance oversight, privacy, and user experience. The UAE's new law applies not only to companies with a physical presence in the Emirates but also to any platform targeting users in the country, a jurisdictional reach that mirrors approaches taken by the European Union under the Digital Services Act and could influence regulatory frameworks elsewhere in the region.
Snap did not disclose user metrics tied to Family Center adoption or provide data on how many parents are actively using the tool to monitor their teens. The company also did not specify whether the new features will be available globally or rolled out in stages by market. Given the regulatory focus in the Gulf and the platform's outsized presence in the region, the timing suggests Snap is positioning itself to meet compliance requirements while addressing broader concerns about teen wellbeing and parental control that have become central to public discourse around social media.
