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Snapchat today is announcing a series of new safeguards for its app, aimed at better protecting teen users, similar to other efforts introduced earlier by other social apps, like Facebook and Instagram. The company says the new features will make it harder for strangers to contact teens, provide a more age-appropriate experience, crack down on accounts marketing inappropriate content and improve education for teens using its app. The company will also introduce more resources for parents and families, including a new website and YouTube explainer series.
The news comes nearly two years after Snap was hauled before Congress to defend its app’s 13+ age rating on the App Store given its content, which some U.S. senators believed was inappropriate for younger users — including sexualized material and ads, articles about alcohol and pornography, and more. Since then, the company has also been in hot water over its use as a platform of choice for drug dealers, which led to multiple teen deaths. And earlier this year, law enforcement reports indicated that child luring and exploitation were on the rise in the app.
Today’s new safeguards take aim at some of these concerns by introducing features aimed at better protecting 13- to 17-year-olds from online risks.
For starters, Snapchat will now display in-app warnings when a minor adds a friend on the app when they don’t already share mutual friends or the person isn’t in their contacts. This message is meant to help the teen more carefully consider if they want to be in contact with this person.
Image Credits: Snap
In addition, Snap will raise the bar on when minors appear in search results. Today, Snap already requires a 13- to 17-year-old to have several mutual friends in common with another user before they can show up in search results or as a friend suggestion, it says. But now it will require a greater number of friends in common, based on the number of friends the user has, making it even tougher for teens to…
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