Snapchat Is Harming Children at an Industrial Scale (2025)

Snapchat made evil design design choices for child users.

* Content is deleted after frist view. No way to review content at a later time.

* Sharing of location foster surveillance among friends. Location can also leak to predators.

* Peeking on who your friends chat with is more surveillance.

And more stuff I dom't know about.

I've turned down, blocked, and scolded recruiters from both Snap and Bytedance because of this. No amount of fluffy TCP could make me work for these companies.

(fd: I worked at anduril, palantir, and mithril cap and had no qualms for a long time)

The whole app was a red flag from the start. Lets create a chat app where we can send timed photos and videos that self destruct. What could kids/creeps possibly use it for?

My 11 year old was begging me to allow her to install snap chat as all her friends have it. She has a smart phone but we limit which apps she's allowed to install and the number of hours to 1.5 per day.

A quick look online and I could instantly see snap chat was definitely on the "no" list for me.

Looks like we made the right choice!

10,000 child sexploitation reports a month is... beyond alarming.

Past the standard critique of paternalism note that the institution responsible for preventing harm themselves shape the conditions under which harm occurs. Likewise this points to a failure in democratic legitimacy, that being: Even if public morality reflects the preference of the majority, those preferences don't justify the resulting restrictions in particular when the disapproval contributes to the harms.

I propose two tests What extent would the harm persist if society ceased stigmatizing the behavior?

What extent would the harm persist if the institutions that impose the penalty was changed? Be that ownership, site design (as proposed, albeit nebulously, in the article) or institutional organization.

To help bring legitimacy towards democratic coercion the status quo must not hold a privileged position, beyond their practice. This is especially important in issues involving the younger generation where the older has out-sized power and influence. Look no further than the recent political revolutions that have happened in majority youth countries.

Personally I find it concerning that Haide has slowly walked his audience from reasonable positions to no children should never be allowed (by a site) to talk to anonymous unverified adults, and that'd he double down on this absolutist position when site changes show improvements in harm by his definition. I fear they will only become more insular from here, even if they could untie sexism and ageism from their philosophy I'm not sure what it'd look like but it'd be more interesting, perhaps even a chance to understand protection. I know I'd rather risk a shark bite than life as a slave, if Haide views children as slaves to social media I wish he'd just go mask off and say it already.

Harm based on the embedded dogma of a capitalist culture that wants to both YOLO every day away but also needs a new generation of serfs to make line go up

There's no separating the adults awareness they end up needy olds in hospice

Obvious self selection and anxiety no one will be around to dote on their biology when it's too old to care for itself; after a life of winging it and projecting zero obligation to assure the condition of others, best ram obligations down the kid's throats

Sorry contemporary American adults but ultimately you get the same dice role and to watch your society change and move on as every other generation before. Whether you are cared for or forgotten in a moldy room is the outcome of socialized capitalist dysregulation you prefer over socialized certainty

When an entire country's zeitgeist is "YOLO!" don't cry when everyone else is YOLOing and you too are forgotten

This is by design and it's only purpose. A messaging system with self destructing messages that has allowed unfettered access by children since the day it launched. I never understood how this was acceptable and I'm still astounded.

(2025) OP

Some previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43704382