I’ll admit it, I lied.
I logged in to Snapchat and told it I was 12 years-old. It understandably told me “sorry, you aren’t old enough for an account.” So, ten seconds later I used the exact same phone number, the exact same birthday, but just changed the year so that I now seemed to be 15 years-old. And it welcomed me with open arms.
With modern technology being so advanced, one would assume that Snapchat could know that I am lying about my age. I used the exact same phone number ten seconds prior. They should have been able to note the deception and blocked my request for an account.
But they didn’t.
Because they don’t want to.
And that’s just the start of where my problems began.
What is Snapchat? Not just funny filters anymore…
I am a Gen-X parent of two elementary-aged children. Naively, I thought that people used Snapchat to take funny photos of themselves with filters of cat ears or dollar signs coming out of their eyeballs. That’s what it was the last time I checked…nine years ago. But as my podcast guest Sarah Gallagher Trombley told me, that’s not what “the kids” are using it for anymore. So if you’re wondering if Snapchat is safe for kids, my answer is: ABSOLUTELY NOT.
Former Snapchat executive, Sarah Gallagher Trombley, explains, “the way Snapchat is used primarily…by both kids and by predators, is as a messaging app in place of text message. The reason why these two groups are particularly interested in Snapchat is because the messages disappear.” She says, “they disappear, in that, if your mom goes to check your phone, she’s not gonna be able to see the message you just sent and she’s not going to be able to see the message that you just received. And that is really interesting to many people. One of the reasons it’s interesting to young people is because It feels like nobody’s watching. It feels like nobody’s supervising. It feels like you can say or send anything you want.”
There are hundreds of reasons why we shouldn’t want our kids feeling like there’s “nobody’s watching.” That breeds nothing but bullying, sexting, lack of accountability, predator activity, and lots of other unsafe issues. But the problems I encountered didn’t have anything to do with the text feature.
(Hear the story of my entire adventure on episode 18 of “Screen Less Play More” podcast.)
Spotlight on Snapchat is NOT SAFE.
I created a fake Snapchat account under the name Tiffany, said I was 15, and made my avatar look like a cute teen girl. I honestly expected that I was going to sit through an hour of mind-numbing makeup tutorials, and then BAM- a predator was going to strike-up a conversation with me in the chat.
Not so.
I clicked on the “Spotlight” feature of Snapchat, which is a never-ending scroll of random videos, uploaded by other users, very similar to the feeds of TikTok or Instagram. The first video was of a girl telling me all about the things she bought at Nordstrom. “Here we go,” I thought, naively assuming I’d be watching a lot of content about clothes and lip plumper. After all, I’m 15, right?
The next thing it showed me was a middle-aged man playing a Barbie video game. Weird, but ok. The third thing the algorithm served me was two people skinning a muskrat. Excuse me? Skinning a dead animal? Why do they think a 15 year-old girl is interested? Perhaps it was a test to see if I would either “like” it or report it, in an attempt to give more input to the algorithm.
By four minutes into the feed, BOOM, it showed me a video chocked FULL of cussing. It was about how good kiwi is for your digestive system, but described it with all the colorful language of a sailor who used to be a pirate, who just got sprung from prison. In 28 seconds the narrator said 8 curse words.
I watched it about five times, because I was trying to write down what it said and count how many curse words were included. Big mistake. Apparently that communicated to the algorithm that I was “down” with f*c#in% $h^t #$$%^^$^@, because it only got worse from here.
After a few videos informing me of how to use a tampon, how to make boys obsessed with me, and how to tell if my “man” is cheating…. it hit me with a video of a woman listening to an insanely inappropriate song. She makes faces as she hears a country song explain how “mom got a thick, veiny, toy” for Christmas while Dad got socks. It goes on and on about how mom is moaning, and then Dad left her. You get the gist.
And I’m sorry, although that would have been hilarious to my 20 year-old self at a keg party, it’s not something I want a ten-year-old stumbling across on Snapchat when she thinks she’s going to see some cool skateboarding videos.
Snapchat promotes un-safe behavior
A little further into my undercover foray into Snapchat, I encountered content that promoted violence against women. It started off “light,” presumably checking to see if I was “cool” with this type of content. Aside from watching the cussing kiwi video four times, I had decided to give no feedback to the algorithm at all – so no “liking”, no reporting anything, no sharing videos with others. I just wanted to see what it would feed me with its creepy computer brain.
It offered up videos that suggested that boys “push her up against the wall, kiss her and tell her she’s pretty. It’s what every girl wants. Just find the courage and do it bc they aren’t gone tell you.”
You read that right. It’s suggesting that you just push a girl against a wall and kiss her. In the world I inhabit, that is considered assault. No grown person is doing that unless they want to get slapped or arrested. However, Snapchat wants this 15 year-old to think it’s commonplace, or great advice.
Why is Snapchat acting weird?
You have heard about kids getting indoctrinated by online extremist ideologies, right? I feel like this is where it starts. The Snapchat Spotlight feed showed me completely bizarre religious videos, sprinkled in among the inappropriately erotic ones. A couple people said that they were praying for me. Then one video showed a little girl who was presumably possessed by demons, getting them struck out of her by a charismatic preacher. Then it showed me a little boy in a hospital room, crying, talking to Jesus, and saying that he could see Jesus.
Okay everyone, I’m a 46-year old woman who has gone to church for 46 years, and it made me REALLY uncomfortable. I can only imagine what thoughts would go through a child’s mind who got onto Snapchat at 15, or worse, by lying about their age and seeing this stuff at 9 or 10. There wasn’t anything necessarily wrong with it, it just felt weird. Really weird.
But wait, there’s more! The weird stuff was nothing compared to the sexual content I saw. Uggg.
Snapchat is a gateway to legit PORN
How does a “camera app” lead you to pornography? (And yes, Snapchat considers itself a camera app. Not social media.) Important question, my friend. And one we should definitely be asking.
The sneaky thing is that it doesn’t explicitly show you videos of people with their clothes off. That, however, is only one click away.
The site started showing me very erotic, very suggestive content within one hour of being on the feed. Keep in mind, it thinks I’m 15. First, there was the simulated hand job, then there was 2 horses having sex, then there was the middle-aged cougar describing her three-some from last night. Soon it showed me a movie clip of a woman masturbating under the covers.
Then there was this.
I honestly can’t even explain how creepy and unnerving this video was. A robot maid, bending suggestively near a man’s nether-region. My brain doesn’t even know what to do with this. And I’m not a kid. Just sayin’.
Snapchat: Not safe at any speed
I don’t need to pollute your brain with any more examples of Snapchat garbage. Let me just explain that I finally figured out how kids get to porn.
I went to the “profile page” of one of the sexy ladies where it says what her name is and how many followers etc. But, the main part of her profile page is this:
Just one click gets you to the real deal. There is no age verification. There is no filter. Just click through to the legit porn.
According to the internet, many porn performers promote their “OnlyFans” sites through Snapchat. (OnlyFans is a subscription-based video service, that primarily offers pornographic content from sex workers and porn performers. There is a small percentage of the site that offers non-sexual content.) Although pornography is officially banned on Snapchat, many OnlyFans performers get around the restrictions by offering links in their Snapchat bios. This allows interested individuals to discover content while staying within Snapchat’s guidelines. Many performers use erotic or suggestive content (but not full-on porn) to get engagement and build a following, then lead users to their pay-for-porn sites.
Do what you want as an adult, but why is this access being offered to a supposed 15-year old?
Can we make Snapchat safe?
What are parents to do about all this?
Well, probably the best idea is to keep your kids off Snapchat until the sun explodes and we all perish.
However, since that’s not very practical, we have some ideas. Sarah Gallagher Trombley used to work at Snapchat as an executive, and she has MANY suggestion for how to make Snapchat a safer experience for us all. Take a listen to her excellent interview here:
Sarah gave us another amazing interview a few weeks ago about group texting etiquitte, SnapMap safety, and social media smarts. Check it out here:
Sarah is an online safety expert and advocate, and her advice is spot-on! Checkout her great Substack page for information on parental controls, webinars, and how the heck to manage all of this tech crap when you’re also trying to raise children, have a job, and live a life! Sarah does the hard work for you!
For Bonus Content check-out my Substack!
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