Sextortion schemes and other safety concerns about the company have been the subject of criticism, and the most recent modifications are intended to address these concerns.
The safety features of Snapchat are being strengthened once more in order to make it more difficult for strangers to communicate with teenagers who use the program. In addition to implementing new alerts regarding “suspicious” contacts, the business is also proactively banning friend requests from accounts that may be associated with fraudulent activities.
In the past, Snap has made an effort to discourage its teenage users from forming relationships with people they do not know through the app. It has been said by the corporation that the most recent warnings are more advanced than previous ones since they are based on “new and advanced signals” that indicate that an account may be associated with a con artist. Snap has also announced that it will restrict friend requests that are submitted by users who do not have any mutual friends with the person who is making the request, as well as users who have “a history of accessing Snapchat in locations that are frequently associated with scamming activity.” Another aspect of the app that is getting an upgrade is the block feature. This means that users who block another user will also immediately block any new accounts that are created on the same device.
The business claims that these modifications will assist in addressing sextortion schemes, which frequently target adolescents across various social media platforms, in addition to other concerns around safety and privacy. Legislators have voiced their concerns about teen safety on Snap, as they have on many of its other social media platforms. These concerns include sextortion scams and the ease with which drug traffickers have been able to communicate with teenagers through other social media platforms. In addition, the most recent upgrade coincides with the publication of a thorough investigation by Rolling Stone into the ways in which Snapchat “helped fuel a teen-overdose epidemic across the country.”
In the article, specific features such as Snapchat’s Snap Map, which enables users to share their present position with their friends, and “quick add” suggestions, which surfaced buddy recommendations, were mentioned. The year 2022 marked the beginning of the company’s policy of restricting “quick add” suggestions between teen and adult accounts. Additionally, although adolescents are still able to choose whether or not to share their location on Snap Map, the firm has said that it is streamlining these options in order to make them more easily modifiable and presenting more “frequent reminders” regarding the manner in which they are revealing their whereabouts within the program.