Accounts of young children must be deleted immediately

Snapchat has over three million users in Sweden alone and is increasing most among the very youngest – who are not even allowed to be there.

– We know that there are certain problems with sexual exploitation of children, says the company’s global security manager Jacqueline Beauchere.

Snapchat, an app where users communicate by sending pictures and videos to each other, so-called “snaps”, has since its launch in 2011 grown to become one of the largest social media apps in the world.

In Sweden, eight out of ten teenagers use the app and it also increases sharply for younger children, below the age limit of 13 years.

And where the kids are, there are the perpetrators – and Snapchat is no exception. According to a report from the organization World Childhood Foundation, Snapchat was the platform that most often appeared in judgments regarding internet-related sexual abuse of children in Sweden in 2020–2021, and the company’s latest transparency report shows that violations connected to sexual content are the absolute most common category that is alleged on the platform.

Industry problems

– These are problems that the entire industry has to deal with. They are not specific to any single platform, emphasizes Jacqueline Beauchere, global security manager at Snapchat.

– But what I devote most of my working time to is our work to combat sexual exploitation of children and abuse material on the platform, she says.

Björn Sellström, who works with strategic questions about Internet-related sexual abuse of children at the police’s operational department (Noa), says that it is not so strange that this type of crime is on Snapchat.

– The more popular a platform is, the more cases you will find. But if you were to look at the number of users as a percentage, it is probably roughly equivalent, he says, and believes that there is nothing special about Snapchat as a platform that attracts perpetrators.

– For our part, Snapchat is grateful to have and work with. When we ask for help, we get help. They are one of the more grateful partners when it comes to, for example, response time.

TT: What does this crime look like?

– It differs slightly, but generally it is about getting children and young people to record videos of themselves, or send pictures of themselves in a sexual context.

Contact between friends

Jacqueline Beauchere emphasizes that Snapchat, unlike many other platforms, is fundamentally designed for communication between people who know each other. Contact can only take place if you have accepted each other as friends, which in itself means a first safety net against unwanted contact, she says.

Teenagers are also not allowed to have public profiles and only people you have mutual friends with appear as new friend suggestions. In addition to several other built-in security mechanisms, they work actively to detect and deal with illegal material or behavior that occurs on the platform.

This is done partly through advanced technology that can detect abusive material, partly with a group that only works with handling reports from users.

– We really want to highlight the tools for blocking and reporting. I can’t emphasize enough how much we rely on reports from users, says Beauchere, who emphasizes that reporting can be completely confidential.

Despite an age limit of 13 years, there are many younger users on Snapchat. According to the Internet Foundation, almost every third child under 13 uses the app every day.

But according to Beauchere, you act immediately if you become aware of violations.

– If we learn that someone under the age of 13 is on the platform, their users are removed and all their data is deleted. The platform is designed for teenagers and above, not younger children.

Difficult with age limit

Björn Sellström at Noa says that age limits have proven to be difficult to ensure for the platforms.

– It is also an issue that is being discussed at EU level, how to get the platforms to take even greater responsibility or further minimize risk through age verification.

Jacqueline Beauchere urges guardians to become more involved in children’s use of Snapchat. She mentions a new function called Family center, which enables children to share, for example, who they talk to on the app with the guardian’s account.

– We hope that this will be a way to preserve teenagers’ right to privacy and independence, but can also lead to discussion between parents and teenagers about the risks that exist.

Björn Sellström also highlights the importance of children being allowed to keep their own protected rooms, but says that parents must also discuss social media more with their children.

– What we can say is that we will probably never get rid of these problems. If we live with that knowledge, we must strengthen the children’s protection with knowledge of how to protect themselves.

Facts

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