Snapchat has added a new suite of safeguards designed to further protect 13- to 17-year-old users.
The new safeguards rolling out in coming weeks will protect teens from being contacted by people they don’t know and provide age-appropriate viewing experiences on Snapchat’s platforms. In addition, the suite includes a new “strike system” and detection technologies that enable more effective crack downs on accounts trying to market and promote inappropriate content.
Snapchat features two content platforms – Stories and Spotlight – where users find public Stories published by reputable media organizations and verified creators. These platforms already feature additional content moderation to prevent violating content from reaching a large audience.
With the new strike system, content that is presented to an age inappropriate audience is removed, whether it is reported by a user or flagged by content detection. If an account is found to be repeatedly trying to circumvent rules, the account will be banned.
In addition, teenage users will now receive a warning if they are contacted by someone they don’t share mutual friends with. Snapchat already requires teenage users to have mutual friends with someone in order to appear in search results; the platform has raised that number as part of its new protections, though the exact amount varies depending on the number of friends an account has.
Snapchat is also releasing an updated parents guide explaining the new safeguards, as well as tools for parents and a YouTube explainer series.
One reason for the enhanced safety tools is a recent Snap survey that discovered gaps in the online safety discussions between parents and teenagers. Conducted by Leger, the survey of 1,000 Canadian adults found that while 92% of parents have had conversations about online safety with their teens, 47% are only somewhat confident when speaking to their teens about it. With young people more vulnerable to online risks such as catfishing and extortion, Snap is using its reach to help them spot likely signs of these activities and what to do if they encounter it, both on and off of its platform.
