Snapchat, sued?

Aubrey Moller
Jan 26, 2017
2 min read

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You know that snapchat article everyone acts like they never read, but secretly do? Yeah, well your 2:00 a.m. buzzfeed binge reads are under major scrutiny for innaprioriate conent visible to minors.

The world's fasted growing technology start up valued at $16 billion has had its first major kickback. With a following of over 150 million active users a day, the 1- 10 second mysterious picture exchanges are not the problem the company is worried about.

Snapchat recently launched their updated Discover Feed Page, featuring media organizations from Cosmopolitan and Vogue to the National Geographic and CNN. Snapchat has the advantage over other social tech platforms such as Facebook due to their "real" news content. No average joe can create content to go on this page; all articles are owned and published by their own media organizations. Snapchat simply acts as medium for delivery: a home to the hundreds of articles available to read and share to all active users, including minors.

Yes, the titles featured above are REAL article titles via Snapchat Discover Page and 14- year old "John Doe" has had enough. Attorney Mark Geragos is sueing the tech start-up on behalf of Doe's family claiming the service "bombards young users with with sexually explicit content" from popular media organizations.

The suit includes snapchat exhibiting "a clear pattern and practice of curating the Discover page with articles that emphasize hardcore sex and sexual themes and liberality of drug use."

Now my 21-year old self wonders, "What's wrong with that? It's entertaining and interesting!" Well what's wrong with that is 25% of active snapchat users are between the ages of 13-17, a sector that has yet to be exposed to such vulgar and indecent themes. The natural education of these sexual topics is being accelerated by these media organizations, scaring some and leaving other alittle too interested.

What Next?

We now wait to see what Snapchat's next move will be. With the release of multiple new snapchat updates, expect to see some age requirement details and date of birth agreement forms. As a young woman, I hope to see changes made in order to see further growth within Snapchat. Their ground breaking sucess in the social tech world has inspired and sparked future innovation for social media.

As for now, go ahead and continue on your late night dirty reads until further notice...

XO,

Aubrey

Source: LAtimes.com | Thinkprogress.org | www.statista.com