‘False sense of security’ for teens on Snapchat as popular app rolls out safety features

Snapchat has rolled out more safety features for teenagers on the app but risks remain. See what’s new, and what safety experts still want to see changed.

Safety experts have called for sweeping changes to make an app popular with teens safer, as the social media company unveils as suite of new protections for minors.

Snapchat is making it even harder for 13 to 17-year-olds to add strangers as friends in a bid to protect them from would-be groomers and bad actors, and a new warning will pop-up on-screen if teenagers are contacted by someone they don’t have mutual friends with, allowing them to report or block the user instantly.

However, minors will still be able to directly add another Snap user as a friend if they’ve obtained their username on another platform or in real life and their current location can still be made visible to friends using the Snap Map feature.

Digital expert Dr Joanne Orlando said safety features and warnings need to be place front and centre in the app, with privacy options available from the sign-up screen and continuous reminders about which settings are turned on.

Dr Orlando has been interviewing kids from around Australia and found Snapchat is the most used social media app among 10 to 13-year-olds, but said many of them have “a false sense of security”.

Snapchat has rolled out new safety features to further protect kids from being contacted by strangers. Picture: AFP

“Snapchat promotes itself … that something that’s online is only there for 24 hours, but the reality is any kind of snap can be captured and saved and sent … outside the safety of the friendship group that has been established on the app,” she said.

“We need to educate the parents, of course we do, but we also need to educate the users, the children.”

Snapchat's Australian head of public policy Henry Turnbull.

Snapchat’s Australian head of public policy Henry Turnbull said the new measures are part of an ongoing plan to improve kids’ safety, which will also include a series of new educational videos and parental resources.

“Because of the way that Snapchat is designed, it is inherently a safer platform in some ways,” he said.

“Public content on Snapchat is curated and moderated rather than a place where you can publicly post whatever you like.”

“But I don’t want to give the impression that this work is done … and this isn’t going to be the last series of safety features that we’ll be talking about.

“I don’t think there’s a silver bullet to online safety and I don’t think anybody can ever say that the job is done.”

The eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said the newly deployed safety measures are “pleasing” but stressed social media platforms must continue working on improvements.

“Humans will always look for ways to circumvent protections or exploit unanticipated weakness,” she said.

“I’m keen to understand how Snap’s new features better protect children from being contacted by adults they do not know — and what other companies can learn from this approach.”

Aussie TikTok creator Kat Clark. The mum of two is helping launch Snapchat’s new safety tools. Picture: Richard Dobson

Snapchat unveiled its new features on Thursday at a launch event in Sydney, enlisting influencer mum Kat Clark to share her tips for other families grappling with their kids’ social media presence.

The TikTok-famous mother of two said it’s critical for parents to communicate openly with their children about their online habits, and give them reasonable freedoms.

“My best advice would be for parents to actually jump on the apps themselves, get an understanding of how it works so that they know how to keep their child safe,” she said.

“I think a lot of parents are freaking out because they don’t actually understand how the app works.”