Snapchat Takes Action Against Drug Epidemic

  • 26-01-2022 |
  • Jackson Matthew

Snapchat is actively taking measures to combat the 'Fentanyl Epidemic,' which has become a common problem among US residents. Social media like Snapchat is a popular way for teenagers to communicate with drug dealers. Snapchat stated that the 'Quick Ad' feature is now limited to make it harder for adult strangers to find teens on the app.

Snapchat Restricted Quick Add Feature

Snapchat, Instagram, and other social media platforms came to the fore after the incident that had attracted great attention on deaths of teenagers who died in the wake of fentanyl-laced tablets sold on the Internet. Due to the horrific events, Snapchat decided to limit the Quick Add feature to make minor users' profiles safer. That way, 13- to 17-year-olds will no longer be discovered by someone they do not know in real life.

According to the Snap Inc blog, adult users will now only be able to see teen profiles in the quick add panel under certain conditions. In this case, an adult user needs to have a certain number of mutual friends with a minor user in the Snapchat app. Moreover, Snapchat has announced that it is developing other ways to fight against the drug epidemic. In the future, we will see a set of parental controls, the details of which will appear later.

Safety Comes First

In addition, the company began to cooperate more actively with law enforcement agencies and increased the number of its employees involved in the fight against malicious content. They are also assisted by artificial intelligence, which helps detect drug-related content.

Snapchat regularly updates the list of slang and terms related to drugs to block them and interfere with communication about them in the app. It's great to know that a social platform is taking action to protect its users. What do you think about the new restrictions against the epidemic? Leave your comment below and share the article with friends!

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