Snapchat announces new safety features with a focus on teenage users

Social media platform Snapchat has announced a few additional safety features, including improved blocking capabilities, simplified location-sharing, enhanced friending protections, and expanded in-chat warnings, aimed at improving online safety for teenage users on the platform across the globe.

The company on Tuesday introduced the features on the platform with the aim of making it difficult for strangers to contact people randomly.

“Snapchat has always been a unique space where you can truly be yourself and connect with your real friends. Young people across India love spending time on our platform, and we are dedicated to making it a safe and positive place for everyone, especially teens. Our newest safety features are all about supporting genuine friendships, empowering teens to make smart choices, and ensuring that every Snapchatter feels secure and confident while using our app,” said Uthara Ganesh, head of public policy for South Asia, Snapchat.

 

As part of the security updates, blocking a user will now also block new friend requests sent from other accounts created on the same device.

This will further limit outreach from other existing or new accounts created by the blocked account, said the company.

Snapchat will also now give frequent reminders to users to check which friends they are sharing their location with on the Snap Map.

“We’re also introducing simplified location-sharing, making it faster and easier for Snapchatters to customise which of their friends can see their location,” said the company.

The company earlier announced that teens will not be suggested in Quick Add or Search unless they have multiple mutual connections in common with the other person. Building on that, the platform is now adding new friend safeguards that will make it harder for strangers to find and add teens.

“We will prevent the delivery of a friend request altogether when teens send or receive a friend request from someone they don’t have mutual friends with, and that person also has a history of accessing Snapchat in locations often associated with scamming activity. This applies regardless of whether the friend request was sent out by the teen or sent to the teen from the suspected bad actor,” said the company in a release.

This feature is currently available in a select few countries and will be introduced in a more localised form in India soon, said Snapchat.

As part of the updates, the company will also expand its in-app warnings to incorporate new and advanced signals, wherein teens will now see a warning message if they receive a chat from someone who has been blocked or reported by others, or is from a region where the teen’s network isn’t typically located—signalling that the person may be a scammer.

This feature will be made available in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Nordics, and parts of Europe. The company didn’t say anything about the India rollout.