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 meant to make it harder for strangers to attach with folks.
New options for added teen safety
Designed to bolster 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 battle again towards sextortion proper throughout the Snapchat platform. This has ranged from designing the app to not show public buddies lists, which could possibly be used to facilitate sextortion schemes, to not permitting teenagers to be messaged by anybody they haven’t added as a pal, or usually are not in thier telephone contacts.
We predict that’s fairly spectacular.
“Our latest safeguards are all about supporting actual and real connections, empowering younger folks to make good 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 in another way to conventional social media, with a give attention to serving to folks join with buddies they know in actual life, and we’re at all times working to make Snapchat an much more enjoyable – and secure – place to do exactly that. As new on-line harms proceed to emerge, we’re dedicated to creating methods to guard our group towards 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 folks they don’t know effectively or aren’t already buddies with. This helps teenagers assume twice about speaking to strangers and encourages them to attach solely with folks 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 purpose to proceed harassing them. On this case Snapchat will recognise it and warn them it’s the identical individual.
- If the message comes from a area the place the teenager’s community isn’t sometimes 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 buddies 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 pal request from somebody they don’t share buddies with, and that individual 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 acquired the request. These modifications assist defend teenagers from sneaky sextortion scams by shady customers usually from outdoors Australia.
Blocking Enhancements to Stop Bullying
Snapchat has at all times let customers block anybody they don’t wish to discuss to anymore. However typically, individuals who get blocked create new accounts and hold making an attempt to contact the identical individual. (This has occurred to my daughter on a number of events.)
To cease this type of harassment, Snapchat is updating its blocking instruments. If teenagers block somebody, it should additionally block new pal requests from different accounts created on the identical gadget.
Simplified Location-Sharing and Extra Reminders
Snapchat repeatedly reminds all customers, together with teenagers, to test their safety and privateness settings and solely share their location with buddies. Now, Snapchat will remind customers extra usually to test which buddies can see their location on the Snap Map. They’ve additionally made it simpler to handle location sharing by simplifying how customers decide which buddies 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 folks already on their pal record, not with everybody on Snapchat.
Snapchat’s newest updates purpose to make the app even safer, notably for teenagers. With new instruments like superior chat warnings, stricter pal request controls, and simpler location-sharing settings, Snapchat is working exhausting to guard customers from on-line risks like sextortion and bullying. These options assist be certain that teenagers solely join with folks they know and belief whereas retaining their private data safe. Snapchat is reinforcing its dedication to offering a secure surroundings for all its customers to take pleasure in.
