Snapchat Makes Updates to Protect Teens
Last week Snapchat announced increased protections for teens. Now, these are not additional parental controls but they are changes to the product that are meant to add protection to users 13-17.
What changed
1 - New restrictions on friend suggestions to prevent randos from trying to friend your kid. Specifically, 13-17 year old users will need to have more mutual friends in common with a new potential connection in order that person to show up in friend suggestions or search results. Snapchat doesn’t specify how many mutual friends are required.
2 - A new policy and process for removing age inappropriate content. Namely, a new strike system to manage accounts promoting inappropriate content for teens. Having worked on the first strike system at Snap, back when I wored there, I am happy to hear this work is continuing.
3 - New content produced by Snap to educate teens about online risks like catfishing and extortion.
What parents needs to remember
These updates are helpful but remember, parents, Snap’s philosophy is relatively hands off compared to other platforms. Some specifics to take note of
A - You can’t control settings on your kid’s account remotely like you can with some other platforms
B - You can’t see what your kid sees like you can with other platforms
C - The new content restrictions only apply to the Spotlight and Stories pages, not to content being shared to your kid via chat etc.
D - The ‘ForMy Eyes Only’ section is a password protected section of an account. There is no way to access or monitor this area of your kid’s account as a parent.
F - Despite being available to anyone 13 or older, Common Sense Media gives Snap an age 16 rating.
My $0.02
If you have a kid on Snapchat you need to
Get on snapchat and create an account for yourself. If for no other reason to show your kid that you understand the app.
Download family center and pair with your kid. You can at least see who they are friends with this way.
Talk to you kid about the dangers of social media and your specific concerns
Read my Snapchat primer here and the Part II here. (Note these part of my archive so you’ll have upgrade to a paid subscription to view)
Paid subscribers also get 2 extra ‘teen / tech / social things to know about’ this week. One is a service and the other is a content creator.
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