WhatsApp Will Let Parents Set Privacy for Their Teen's Account

WhatsApp is giving parents a say in the privacy settings on their child's account, BBC Technology reports. That is a small design change with a real consequence: a decision that used to belong to the account holder — how visible the account and its activity are — moves up a generation, to whoever sets the controls on the family plan phone bill side of the relationship. The protective logic is easy to state. The teenage logic is equally easy to state, and it is the one that rarely gets a settings toggle: a parent who owns the privacy choice also owns a piece of the child's social life, and children know it. Neither impulse is wrong. The question worth asking is whether a messaging app is a good place to make parenting policy at all.