Social Media Protection

Keep your children safer with our social media protection feature.

Net Nanny includes a preloaded list of seven social media apps you can allow, protect or block and over 100 other apps you can control. 

Learn how you can protect your family's Windows, Mac and iOS devices with Net Nanny’s Family Protection Pass.

What is Social Media Protection?

Social Media Protection helps you decide how your child uses social media. You can block seven popular apps on a pre-loaded list on Net Nanny's Social Media Protection Screen completely, or let your child use them in a safer, filtered way.

Block the apps you choose
We’ve listed seven of the most popular social media platforms on the Social Media Protection screen. Block them all, or just the ones you’re not comfortable with.

Or allow a filtered version
When an app is protected, your child can still visit that platform in their web browser instead. There, Net Nanny’s Internet Filter scans for harmful words and messages, so your child can stay connected with extra protection in place.

Want to block it everywhere?
If you’d rather your child didn’t use a platform at all, just add its web address to your block list. That way it’s blocked in the app and in the browser.

Social Medial Protection Screen

Social Media Apps that support protection are Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, Tumblr, X (formally twitter) and Youtube. Other Social Media Apps are listed below.

Apps that do not support protection can still be blocked and managed by parents.

How does Social Media Protection work?

Parents can choose to block, allow, or protect social media apps from the Social Media Protection screen. This screen is accessed by selecting the user from the top of the Family Feed screen, then selecting the User's Avatar from the User Profile screen and selecting “Social Media Protection” from the Profile Settings page.

Setting an App to “Block” will completely block apps and websites related to the respective service. Setting an App to “Allow” will allow all apps.

For supported social media platforms, parents have a new powerful option called “Protect”. When an app is set to “Protect”, access to the app is blocked, requiring the child to access the social media service through a browser instead, where Net Nanny's content filtering restrictions can be applied to detect and block specific categories of web content.

To enable this protection, select the user avatar from the Profile Settings screen, then select Social Media Protection from the list. Social media apps that support this protection are listed towards the top of the page and have an option to set the app to “Protect”.

Social Media Protection: Why do some apps have an option to “Protect” and some do not?

Some Social Media services go to great lengths to use proprietary encryption and prohibit monitoring or protection. These services cannot be filtered and protected by Net Nanny content filtering technologies.

Some social media apps give a message that there is a different “protected” way to open when my kid’s attempt to open them. What does this mean?

Each social media app is different and therefore requires different levels of Net Nanny protection and monitoring. Some apps simply open and provide protection and others require Net Nanny to open the app or be granted access to the app to ensure the content is monitored and safe.

Net Nanny users can always see which apps are protected and available by opening the Net Nanny Child App. The Child App includes icons and shortcuts for Social Media Apps that are protected.