Snapchat, the social app utilized by over 8 million Aussies every month, has simply introduced the discharge of some new options to guard customers from on-line hurt together with cyberbullying and sextortion, and we’re all for it!
A rising crime in Australia (and abroad), Sextortion is rising at a charge of knots. These new options are supposed to make it harder for strangers to attach with individuals.
New options for added teen safety
Designed to strengthen the real-life connections that make Snapchat distinctive, the brand new suite of instruments contains:
- Enhanced friending protections
- Simplified location-sharing
- Blocking enhancements, and
- Expanded in-app warnings
Ben Au, Public Coverage Lead ANZ, at Snap Inc. defined they’ve labored very diligently to struggle again in opposition to sextortion proper throughout the Snapchat platform. This has ranged from designing the app to not show public associates lists, which may very well be used to facilitate sextortion schemes, to not permitting teenagers to be messaged by anybody they haven’t added as a good friend, or will not be in thier telephone contacts.
We predict that’s fairly spectacular.
“Our latest safeguards are all about supporting actual and real connections, empowering younger individuals to make sensible decisions, and guaranteeing that each Snapchatter feels safe and assured whereas utilizing our platform,” Ben Au, Snap Inc.
New Snapchat Options To Shield Customers
Not Your Common Social Media App
Ben went on to say, “Snapchat is designed otherwise to conventional social media, with a deal with serving to individuals join with associates they know in actual life, and we’re all the time working to make Snapchat an much more enjoyable – and protected – place to just do that. As new on-line harms proceed to emerge, we’re dedicated to creating methods to guard our group in opposition to these dangers, particularly with the protection of younger Australians in thoughts.”
“Creating an surroundings that prioritises the protection, privateness, and wellbeing of Australians stays a precedence for the corporate, and particularly that of teenagers,” he continued.
Expanded In-App Warnings to assist with sextortion
Final November, Snapchat began displaying a warning when teenagers get messages from individuals they don’t know properly or aren’t already associates with. This helps teenagers suppose twice about speaking to strangers and encourages them to attach solely with individuals they belief.
Since then, over 12 million customers have used this function to dam others. Spectacular!
Snapchat is including extra pop-up warnings too.
Teenagers will get alerts if:
- They get messages from individuals who they’ve already blocked and who’ve subsequently opened a brand new account with the intention to proceed harassing them. On this case Snapchat will recognise it and warn them it’s the identical particular person.
- If the message comes from a area the place the teenager’s community isn’t usually situated, due to this fact decreasing the danger of strangers from random locations infiltrating their community.
Enhanced Friending Protections
Proper now, teenagers don’t present up in Snapchat’s Fast Add or Search until they’ve a number of mutual associates with somebody. To make it even safer, Snapchat is including new guidelines to cease strangers from discovering and including teenagers.
With the brand new updates, if a teen will get a good friend request from somebody they don’t share associates with, and that particular person has a historical past of logging in from scam-prone areas, Snapchat will block the request.
This works each methods, whether or not the teenager despatched or obtained the request. These modifications assist shield teenagers from sneaky sextortion scams by shady customers typically from exterior Australia.
Blocking Enhancements to Forestall Bullying
Snapchat has all the time let customers block anybody they don’t need to discuss to anymore. However generally, individuals who get blocked create new accounts and hold making an attempt to contact the identical particular person. (This has occurred to my daughter on a number of events.)
To cease this sort of harassment, Snapchat is updating its blocking instruments. If teenagers block somebody, it’ll additionally block new good friend requests from different accounts created on the identical gadget.
Simplified Location-Sharing and Further Reminders
Snapchat repeatedly reminds all customers, together with teenagers, to test their safety and privateness settings and solely share their location with associates. Now, Snapchat will remind customers extra typically to test which associates can see their location on the Snap Map. They’ve additionally made it simpler to handle location sharing by simplifying how customers choose which associates can see their location.
With these updates, customers can simply see who they’re sharing their location with, replace their settings, or take away their location from the map multi functional place. Location sharing is off by default, so customers should select to show it on, they usually can solely share their location with individuals already on their good friend listing, not with everybody on Snapchat.
Snapchat’s newest updates intention to make the app even safer, significantly for teenagers. With new instruments like superior chat warnings, stricter good friend request controls, and simpler location-sharing settings, Snapchat is working laborious to guard customers from on-line risks like sextortion and bullying. These options assist make sure that teenagers solely join with individuals they know and belief whereas preserving their private info safe. Snapchat is reinforcing its dedication to offering a protected surroundings for all its customers to get pleasure from.
