Snapchat is the "Most Used App for Grooming Children" According to the NSPCC

A friend recently experienced this first-hand, and wants to share her story

A friend texted me frantically the other night. Her almost 13-year old son had encountered what was surely an online predator on Snapchat.

Some Background. My friend, let’s call her “Stacy”, allowed her 12-year old son a phone and access to Snapchat in order to message friends on his sports teams. Stacy and her husband had talked about the importance of adding only people he knows, and the reasons why. They talked about the dangers of AI, and the importance of never sharing photos without clothing on. They spoke at length, many times about these things. She started out checking his phone daily, and now checks every other day or so.

What Happened. During a routine check, Stacy checked her son’s messages and saw that he was speaking to a “girl” who added him through the “quick-add” feature (a feature well-known to connect predators with children). The “girl” told him that she goes to another high school in his area (and could name it), and had also added several of his friends. The chats were flirtatious, and “she” quickly asked to meet him in person. He then invited her to his upcoming hockey game!

Stacy messaged a friend who works at the neighbouring high school and asked if there was a student there with the name that was provided. There was not.

Stacy was shocked that her son was so forth-coming and open with this “girl” and did not seem skeptical that she may not be real. Even after they told him she wasn’t real, he wanted to test the theory and see if “she” would show up at his hockey game.

Stacy was particularly concerned that this person now has her son’s location, and knows where they live.

The Stats. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) says Snapchat is the most widely used platform for online grooming. Cybertip.ca, a Canadian tipline for reporting child exploitation, receives an average of 7 reports per day, 74% of which originate on either Instagram or Snapchat (keep in mind most of this activity goes unreported). Child grooming involves girls 4 times out of 5, whereas 83% of sextortion cases involve boys.

These predators are smart, sophisticated, and know how to earn a child’s trust. They will groom for days, weeks or months in order to get their desired payoff (whether money or explicit imagery). They will make common friends, and figure out where a child lives and go to school, in order to earn their trust.

Myths. A common misconception about online predators is that their victims are always children with pre-existing mental health disorders, children from broken families, or children who’s parents aren’t involved and loving. My friend’s child has no mental health disorders, comes from a nuclear family, has loving parents and is involved in many offline activities. Stacy couldn’t believe this could happen to her child, just like many other parents who believe it won’t happen to theirs.

What can Stacy’s family do now? What could you do if this happened to your child? There are a number of options here depending on your child and your relationship with them.

First off, talking this through with your child is a must. Ask questions and try to figure out their thought process and what made “her” so believable. Do you think they truly appreciate what happened? Did they learn from it? What would they do next time?

If you feel your child understands and appreciates the risk, you could choose to change nothing. Maybe you monitor their phone more frequently going forward, with continued conversations. Perhaps you tell your child that if they add anyone they don’t personally know in the future, they will lose their phone.

If you feel your child really doesn’t appreciate the situation, it would be appropriate to take away social media access until they are a bit older and have gained more skepticism and critical thinking skills. Perhaps you replace their phone with a kid-safe(r) phone like Pinwheel or Bark. Perhaps you only allow Snapchat on your device in a common area. Perhaps you really study the parental controls available and tighten them up.

These decisions aren’t easy. Social media is often a slippery slope. What may start as an app for ‘sports team group chats’ in time turns into adding people outside the team, browsing spotlight stories and potentially messaging people with nefarious intentions. Parents need to understand that these apps are not inherently safe for children, and act accordingly based on the risk posed to their individual child.

Luckily for Stacy and her son, everything ended with “no harm done.” By randomly checking his phone fairly frequently, she was able to intervene. And maybe her son never would have sent any explicit imagery- maybe she’s taught him well. But it’s clear that kids are targeted for a reason, and with these professionals targeting thousands of kids each day, they’re just waiting for one of them to make a mistake.