Apple’s new parental controls are for keeping Apple out of trouble

When Apple put child safety front and center at WWDC on Monday, its stated goal was helping parents fine-tune their kids’ online experiences and avoid excessive screen time. But amid a global debate over internet regulation, its latest updates also looked like a defensive move in a brewing fight against Meta and other app developers. Apple’s new parental controls are for keeping Apple out of trouble Apple expanded its toolkit for parents at WWDC, but pushed developers to step up. Apple expanded its toolkit for parents at WWDC, but pushed developers to step up. Apple announced an expanded toolkit for parents through its child accounts at WWDC, including a greater ability to customize kids’ allotted screen time and the ability to block gory or violent images in messages before kids see them. Raja Bose, Apple’s director of trust, safety, and values product marketing, touted some of the ways Apple believes it can be useful for kids to have access to devices. “On one hand, there’s so many benefits to your child having their own device,” Bose said. “You rest easier since you can stay in touch, know where they are, and provide them with great apps that can help them learn and grow.” But he then acknowledged the risks of unfettered access to the internet before kids are ready. The company emphasized a few key principles in its presentation of the new child safety features: that parents should be the ones to decide what their kids have access to, that Apple’s recommendations will be shaped by expert research that balances risks and benefits of technology for kids, and that some harmful things on the internet are outside its own control. “While Apple’s powerful controls help parents manage which apps their child can access, and when, it’s developers who play an important role in ensuring kids are getting age-appropriate experiences within apps,” Ann Thai, Apple’s senior director of marketplace platforms and technologies, said during the presentations. “It’s developers who play an important role in ensuring kids are getting age-appropriate experiences within apps” The last point sounded like a message not just to Apple customers, but for politicians and regulators debating who should be responsible for keeping kids off certain parts of the internet. As policymakers have grown increasingly enthusiastic about age-gating, Meta and other app and website developers have been forced to roll out age-checking systems in some countries, including the UK, Australia, and parts of the US. In turn, they’ve backed proposals that would put the onus on app stores to verify users’ ages instead, then send signals about those ages to app developers. Apple has vehemently fought these bills. CEO Tim Cook reportedly called the governor of Texas in an unsuccessful bid to stop him from signing an app store-level age verification rule and visited Capitol Hill to lobby against similar legislation the company has warned could negatively impact user privacy. The Apple and Google-backe…