Snapchat is changing its friend recommendation feature after calls for increased safety on the app. The company will be making it harder for adult strangers to find teens in its app by limiting friend recommendations in the “Quick Add” feature.
Now, the app won’t display the accounts of 13 to 17-year-olds in Quick Add unless they have “a certain number of accounts in common,” Snap says. The change won’t prevent adults and teens from connecting, but it could make it more difficult for strangers to find teens they don’t already know, which is the point of all this. The company said the change was part of its plan to “combat the fentanyl epidemic” and keep drug dealers from finding “new ways to abuse Snapchat.”
This is because the company has been criticized for its handling of drug dealers on the platform recently. Lawmakers and safety advocates have pushed Snap to do more to keep dealers off of Snapchat after there were reports of overdoses linked to drugs that were bought through the app. Snap also says that it has improved its ability to proactively detect “drug-related content” on the platform, with 88 percent of “drug related content” now being “proactively detected” by using AI. The company also has buffed up the team that works directly with law enforcement agencies and has “significantly improved” its response time to law enforcement requests.
If you would like to know how to change your Snapchat username check out our quick guide which takes you through the process.
Source Engadget