Snapchat announced on Tuesday that new parental controls will soon be available for the social network. According to the company, there will be options to restrict friend suggestions for teenage users so adult strangers can’t find those accounts as easily.
As reported by Engadget, Snapchat will no longer show the accounts of 13-17 year old users as suggestions for other users unless they have a certain number of mutual friends. This won’t stop strangers from adding teens to the social network, but it will certainly make it harder for them to chat with teens they don’t know.
Snapchat explained on his official blog:
We recently added a new safeguard to Quick Add, our friend suggestion feature, to further protect 13-17 year olds. In order to be found by someone else in Quick Add, users under the age of 18 must have a certain number of friends in common with that person – and also make sure it’s a friend they know in real life.
The move is part of Snapchat’s effort to fight the “fentanyl epidemic” as the social network has been accused of failing to prevent “drug-related content.” According to the company, it has improved its own AI to detect such content and has worked with law enforcement agencies to improve response time to law enforcement requests.
Additionally, we continue to work with experts to regularly update the list of slang and drug-related terms that we block from being seen in Snapchat. This is a constant, ongoing effort that not only prevents Snapchatter from getting search results for these terms, but also proactively brings the expert educational resources to our heads-up tool.
The company says more details about the new parental controls will be announced in the coming months.
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