Survey: Teens regularly see harmful content, messages on Snapchat
Is Snapchat Safe for Teens? A New Report Raises Serious Concerns
Many teenagers using Snapchat often come across content they don't want to see or that could be dangerous. This is according to a recent survey that looked into teens' experiences on the platform.
The survey involved 1,016 young people. A full third of them reported seeing or getting unsafe content or messages just in the past week. More than half said they had at least one such bad experience over the last year.
These findings suggest that Snapchat, which is known for messages disappearing after they're seen, might be much less safe than parents believe. This was stated by Sarah Gardner, CEO of The Heat Initiative, the group that conducted this research and advocates for online safety.
Frequent Dangerous Encounters on Snapchat for Teens
Teens in the survey reported three main types of dangerous experiences, with up to a third of them mentioning these issues: getting unwanted contact, facing bullying, and seeing sexually suggestive content and messages. About one out of every six young people also said they had encountered content related to hate speech, drugs, or alcohol. A smaller number of teens confirmed they had even seen graphic violence and content about self-harm on the app.
What's particularly worrying is that more than 40% of those who received unwanted messages felt that the person sending them was an adult.
Sarah Gardner pointed out that the survey results directly contradict what Snap, the company behind Snapchat, claims about its safety features. Snap has often stated that its tools prevent strangers from sending unsolicited messages to minors.
"These findings directly go against that claim and show that it is absolutely not happening," Gardner emphasized.
However, a spokesperson for Snap disagreed with the report's conclusions. They released a statement to Mashable, saying, “We share the goal of keeping young people safe online and continuously invest in protections designed to reduce potential harmful interactions on Snapchat. While we respect the role of advocates in raising important issues, we believe this report does not fully reflect the significant investments Snap has made to help protect young people.”
Legal Challenges and Industry Scrutiny for Snap
The Heat Initiative, an advocacy group focused on online safety and holding companies accountable, conducted this survey in December of last year. They questioned Snapchat users between the ages of 10 and 17. Other advocacy groups, including Anxious Generation, ParentsTogether Action, and Design It 4 Us, worked with the Heat Initiative on this important research.
These survey results highlight how common harmful content is on Snapchat, especially as major social media companies are under pressure to show they are protecting young users. Snapchat is one of the most popular platforms in the U.S. In 2024, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel testified before Congress, stating that over 20 million American teenagers use Snapchat.
Earlier this year, in January, Snap settled a lawsuit filed by a teenager. The lawsuit claimed that Snapchat's design, including its way of recommending content through algorithms, led to addictive use and harmed the teen's mental health. Shortly after this settlement, Snap introduced new parental control features for teens.
It's worth noting that another survey of teens, conducted last fall by the Pew Research Center, presented a different view of Snapchat. That poll suggested Snapchat actually helped strengthen friendships and did not negatively impact teens' mental health. The Snap Company spokesperson referred to this Pew poll as independent research that shows Snapchat supports user well-being and helps them connect with close friends and family.
How Teens Deal with Harmful Content on Snapchat
Snapchat's own community guidelines clearly state that many of the harmful things teens reported in the survey are not allowed. These include selling or promoting illegal drugs, showing graphic violence, hate speech, and bullying.
The survey also found that 44% of the teens interviewed said they had not encountered unsafe content or messages in the past year.
However, for those teens who did come across such content, two out of five simply closed the app or tried to ignore what they saw. More than half of these teens said they had become "used to it."
Sarah Gardner told Mashable that she finds it "alarming" that so many young people have become numb to these kinds of experiences online.
"Right now, Snap is putting the onus on the kids themselves to navigate a minefield of unwanted content," Gardner explained. "What you see in the poll is that kids have sort of succumbed to it."
While Snapchat offers tools for users to block and report content they find harmful or unsafe, teens in the survey were much more likely to block another user than to report them to the platform. Previous research from the nonprofit organization Thorn has also shown that minors typically prefer blocking someone rather than reporting them after a negative online encounter.
Dr. Mitch Prinstein, co-director of the Winston Center on Technology and Brain Development at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told Mashable that this survey should serve as an important warning for parents.
"It’s really important for parents to know that kids’ social media looks very different from their own," said Prinstein. "The survey tells us what kids have been informally telling us about for a long time: social media is not simply a safe place to hang out with friends."
Dr. Prinstein has previously acted as a witness in legal cases against Meta and other social media companies, though not against Snap. He was not involved in The Heat Initiative's research for this report.
Concerns About Adults Contacting Teens on Snapchat
Dr. Brian Levine, director of the UMass Cybersecurity Institute, shared with Mashable that the survey's findings are concerning, though not entirely surprising, assuming the survey accurately represented Snapchat-using teens.
Dr. Levine, who has previously consulted for The Heat Initiative but was not involved in this new survey, believes it's problematic for major social media platforms to use algorithms to recommend adults to children and vice-versa.
As an expert in preventing child exploitation, Dr. Levine has testified for the state in New Mexico's child safety case against Meta. He argued that Snapchat could do much more to keep adults from interacting with teenagers on the platform.
Snapchat states that all accounts are private by default, meaning users can only communicate with friends they've both accepted or people in their phone contacts. However, users might need to manually turn off a feature called "Find Friends" to prevent their account from being suggested. The survey found that one in six teens reported seeing suggested accounts of strangers that appeared to be run by adults through this "Find Friends" feature.
"Nobody's looking for a perfect score here," Levine acknowledged. But he added a crucial question: "where else in society do we liberally mix kids and adults in an algorithmic way?"
Dr. Levine suggested that social media platforms can generally improve safety for young people by putting in place stronger policies and practices. These include better age verification to ensure users are truly the age they claim, providing encrypted messaging only for adults, and stopping children from accessing the service through virtual private networks (VPNs).
He also raised questions about specific design features of Snapchat, like messages that disappear. He pointed out that this feature can prevent minors, parents, and authorities from collecting important evidence in cases of sexual exploitation and sextortion. Dr. Levine asked, "To erase all the messages – is that really the safest product for children?"
UPDATE: Jun. 3, 2026, 3:40 p.m. PDT This story has been updated to include a statement from the Snap Company.
from Mashable
-via DynaSage
