If you're a parent, you're probably terrified at the thought of your kid getting his or her hands on a computer, smartphone, or tablet. Who knows what kids email their friends? What they talk about with each other on messaging apps? What new apps they used to send secret or time-locked messages (or photos) to one another?
Kids and technology can be an anxiety-inducing combination. And that's probably why Disney, a brand often associated with kid-friendly activities, is jumping into the app messaging space. It just recently launched Disney Mix, a chat application for families and kids that aims to put safety at the forefront of the conversation — ideally, without making the app feel too childlike or lame.
"You can only send messages with someone if you have both accepted a friend request. Disney Mix has filters in place to make chats safer. Inappropriate chat, language, and personal information will be blocked by these filters and you'll see dashes instead of words when something is blocked," reads Disney's description.
If you or your kid happen to be in a conversation that starts to violate one of Disney Mix's community guidelines, it's easy enough to report. All you have to do is tap on the whistle icon located in the upper-right of any chat window. Your conversation then gets forwarded off to Disney's moderation team, and violations of the community guidelines can get a user temporarily (or permanently) banned from the chat app.
DIsney Mix isn't just for sending text messages back and forth. The app allows kids and parents to send each other stickers or play a variety of interactive games. Users can follow official Disney accounts on the app, which will periodically send them news about new Disney Channel content or new Disney Movies videos to watch, for example.
Though the app doesn't currently support photo and video sharing, Disney is planning to roll out the feature in a subsequent update. We're interested to see how Disney plans to make this feature friendly enough for all to partake in — perhaps a method that allows parents to see what their kids send and receive? Stronger moderation features? Image recognition technology that automatically censors out potentially problematic things?