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Ask HN: How is Snapchat getting away with no content moderation?

17 points by chickenpotpie ↗ HN
I've been laughing/screaming in confusion at how ridiculously laissez-faire Snapchat's spotlight feed is. I was using it one day and encountered some mildly sexual content and reported it. I was mildly shocked that they responded within minutes that it didn't violate their terms. I've been on a strange journey of intentionally watching explicit content to get Snapchat to recommend me more and more sexual content. I have reported videos of women literally striping down to nothing and smelling their underwear and everytime Snapchat has emailed me back to tell me that it didn't violate their policy. I also see that Snapchat's minimum age requirement is 13. How is Snapchat showing pornography to minors with no repercussions?

20 comments

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gardenhedge
Probably because all content on snapchat needs to be explicitly followed. You don't get exposed to it otherwise unlike instagram (explore tab, reels), reddit, twitter, etc
chickenpotpie
That's not how Snapchat spotlight works. It's basically TikTok. A user just scrolls up through recommended videos.
gardenhedge
Oh, I guess it's been a long while since I've used Snapchat
Phanyxx
There needs to be some sort of trigger for the media and/or a critical mass of people to care. Tiktok has the China and data harvesting angle. Facebook has an unlikable founder (sorry, Zuck), and slew of headline generating scandals with user data.

Snapchat just isn't on the radar of people who care about content moderation… yet.

throwawaysleep
1. The relatively closed ecosystem and relatively short lifespan of content on there. Ever had anyone link to anything on Snapchat to you? A wave of outrage cannot build without whatever is outrageous moving beyond the initial group.

2. It is pornography, not hate or violence. None of the big moderation waves have been about porn (other than child porn). Marketing routinely uses content that is just short of pornography. On a societal level, especially in an internet age, there are next to no restrictions on its access. A quick Google search told me that the average age a kid first watches porn is 10-13. It is fairly abundant on Facebook and Twitter as far as I can tell. Society in general shows porn to minors with no repercussions.

throwaway23597
Snap is crazy, man. It's not just pornographic content. Back in high school, kids used to just openly sell drugs on that platform. Snap stories very blatantly selling weed, lsd, shrooms, cocaine, etc. I was honestly appalled at the time but apparently police never picked up on the situation. I imagine that things are even more intensified today, if anything.
tiffanyh
Sounds like Tumblr back-in-the-day.
version_five
Maybe ask why you care so much and why you think someone else needs to do something. Why not just not use it if it's something you don't like.
badrabbit
Because minors are involved and you know... that's illegal and commonly considered harmful especially before they had proper sexual education.
thinking4real
This attitude is way too prevalent for how badly society is crumbling
1B05H1N
Sex sells, welcome to the internet.
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ChildOfChaos
I don't understand the issue.

Are Minors producing the content? Or is there merely a risk that they will consume it?

A simple google search will give them the same results, so why is this on Snapchat? Are you going to complain that Firefox doesn't do content moderation?

You asked how they are getting away with no content moderation yet, you also said that the moderation team replied in minutes, so clearly they are moderating and are on top of things, you just didn't agree with there choice. Also you mention about purposely gaming the algorithm to show you such content, again how is this different to using a search engine to directly find the content?

bradwood
Scantily clad women smelling underwear might be a bit saucy, but it doesn't sound like porno to me.