Snapchat Sued For Exposing Kids To Sexually Offensive Content

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It was just a matter of time before someone filed a lawsuit over this stuff. Does anyone know why it is so important to have kids "12 and up" on Snapchat in the first place?

Specifically, the legal action takes issue with Snapchat Discover, by which users come across content from "media partners" including Buzzfeed, Vice and MTV. According to the complaint, Snapchat helps curate the content and "exercises direct control over its editorial content and what is published to the consumer." The lawsuit adds that Snapchat's "terms of service" lack warnings about offensive content on Snapchat Discover.
 
As it turns out...using the internet as an unsupervised and unpaid nanny to keep kids occupied...isn't a good idea.
 
You can control your kids, but you can't control what those other kids show your kid. It's sort of a catch 22. We home school, it helps tremendously. But seriously, in this information age where every kids seems to have a smart phone (it's great for tracking them too) I think these services do have to control some aspects of the content.

Even most adults don't want to see that trash.
 
Anyone that gives a smartphone to a child needs to be prepared to answer the "What are these people doing, Daddy?" questions. Or in some cases, learn to ask the kid when you don't know and want to find out.
Legitimately expecting the Internet to police itself died in the early 90's.
 
Monitor your kids. Mine are old enough to where I can monitor them somewhat, but they still see content that I don't like. It's like finding a porn stash. You can't hide them from everything. You can do the best you can.

I use Snapchat and I have kids that see what I send. I send goofy faces to make them laugh. I do stupid stuff to make them laugh. You see "sponsored" filters from Budweiser and other things that aren't meant for kids. That's how the service works. If you don't like it, don't let your kids use it. It's not a secret, it's not a shock. You expect to see sponsored filters like that. No need for a lawsuit...
 
Ok if this attorney wins, I want the 14 year old in question to be taken away from his parents by CPS as well.
 
OMG there is pr0n on the internet? Before snapchat we would just go to a buddies house and used AOL chatrooms when parents weren't home. Before that, we would 'borrow' other parents magazines.... If it's out there, kids will find it. Internet just makes it much more easily available, but sure lets give kids easy access and blame the service providers instead of the stupid parents....
 
Ur_Mom said:
Monitor your kids. Mine are old enough to where I can monitor them somewhat, but they still see content that I don't like. It's like finding a porn stash. You can't hide them from everything. You can do the best you can.

I use Snapchat and I have kids that see what I send. I send goofy faces to make them laugh. I do stupid stuff to make them laugh. You see "sponsored" filters from Budweiser and other things that aren't meant for kids. That's how the service works. If you don't like it, don't let your kids use it. It's not a secret, it's not a shock. You expect to see sponsored filters like that. No need for a lawsuit...
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He's not complaining about the sponsored filters, the complaint is about the ads being presented to the kids (of a sexual nature, stuff you'd see on porn sites). I'm surprised Snapchat doesn't have a system in place that says if < 18 years old, use safe ads.

It's one thing if the kid put his age as 18. But if you input your age as 14 and still get adult orientated adverts, there's something wrong with that. They opened themselves up to this by not making that system and making the app available to anyone. I don't see anything that says "18 years old and older".

DocSavage said:
Everything he complains about is on the cover of grocery store magazines.
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Right, he just has to travel back to the 1990's when that aisle was actually relevant and occupied. :)
 
Snapchat Discover isn't like Facebook ads. It's curated content via advertisers, but Snapchat doesn't dictate what those advertisers share. It's like suing FB because your kid clicked on a Buzzfeed link and started browsing the sex tips or something. FB is much more targetted with it's ads.
 
Fucking prudes. OMG my kid saw a penis! Yeah, while he can just look down and see his own.
 
Spidey329 said:
He's not complaining about the sponsored filters, the complaint is about the ads being presented to the kids (of a sexual nature, stuff you'd see on porn sites). I'm surprised Snapchat doesn't have a system in place that says if < 18 years old, use safe ads.

It's one thing if the kid put his age as 18. But if you input your age as 14 and still get adult orientated adverts, there's something wrong with that. They opened themselves up to this by not making that system and making the app available to anyone. I don't see anything that says "18 years old and older".
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Ah. I thought it was referring to the sponsored filters. If this goes through, though, we could sue any company that has ads on their site. Even a tiny site that uses Google Ads for their advertising host. If you get a bad ad or malware, you can sue. They do their best to avoid those type of ads, and they are usually taken down soon, but it happens. Anywhere on the internet, any application that has ads...

Wouldn't it be great, though, if those were targeted ads and they were only shown because the adult user of the phone was looking up porn or something? :)
 
Spidey329 said:
He's not complaining about the sponsored filters, the complaint is about the ads being presented to the kids (of a sexual nature, stuff you'd see on porn sites). I'm surprised Snapchat doesn't have a system in place that says if < 18 years old, use safe ads.
Click to expand...
It probably has a system in place of view cookies > target ads of similar type .... translation they're already looking at porn.
 
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