The Democracy News |New Delhi : On Tuesday, Snapchat unveiled a set of new safety measures aimed at protecting teenagers and the wider community from online risks. The updated features consist of increased in-app alerts, improved friend safeguards, easier location sharing, and enhanced blocking capabilities.
Uthara Ganesh, Snap's Head of Public Policy-South Asia, mentioned in a statement that the youth in India enjoy using our platform, and our focus is on ensuring it remains a secure and welcoming space for all, particularly teenagers. Introduced the previous year, the company has now broadened the 'in-app alerts' functionality to include updated and more sophisticated signals.
Adolescents will receive a cautionary alert if they get a message from an individual who has been blocked or reported by others, or is from a region not familiar to the teen’s network, indicating possible scamming activity.
This functionality will be accessible in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Scandinavia, and some areas of Europe.
The platform has recently introduced additional 'friendship protections' that will increase the difficulty for unfamiliar individuals to locate and connect with teenagers. The company stated that they will block the sending or receiving of friend requests if a teenager has no mutual friends with the recipient and the person has a history of using Snapchat in locations known for scamming.
This function is currently in use in only a few countries and will be launched in a more customized manner in India shortly. Snapchat users receive frequent prompts to review their account security and privacy options, and they are only able to share their location with friends.