Snapchat is restricting how its younger users share videos. Starting this week, Snapchatters ages 13 to 15 will get an exclusive profile where their Stories and short Spotlight clips will be visible only to mutually accepted friends, and will no longer be pushed to the general public in Spotlight.
Until now, those under 16 could post to Spotlight, Snap’s TikTok-style public feed, but without their posts being attributed to a profile, a setting intended to allow them to join while protecting them from strangers. The new version completely removes audience reach for that age group and removes engagement metrics – there are no favorite counts on these profiles, which removes some of the pressure of chasing numbers.
“For younger teens, we think the default should be a more private sharing experience,” Snap said.
An age-tiered approach
Snap is dividing the experience by age. Those who are between 13 and 15 years old get the friends-only profile. Those ages 16 and 17 get an optional, limited introduction to public sharing with added protection and visibility from parents.
Only at 18 years old do users get full public profiles and distribution. It sits on top of existing protections for teens: strict default settings, blocking contacts from people a teen hasn’t added, pre-moderated public content, and Family Center tools that let parents see a child’s friends and recent contacts.
The move follows a now familiar script. Instagram built teen accounts with stricter defaults, and platforms across the board are modernizing protections for minors. Snap is doing so under particular pressure: It settled a social media addiction lawsuit earlier this year and is fighting similar cases across the United States, even as CEO Evan Spiegel maintains that Snapchat is a positive, friend-focused service that shouldn’t be lumped in with TikTok and Instagram.
The backdrop is regulatory and it is global. Lawmakers are reaching out from the US state age verification bills to the UK Online Safety Act and the EU Online Safety Act. boost block-wide age protections for children. goal is even fighting Ofcom in court about how the UK bills it.
The problem is the one that affects all security features for teenagers: it only works if the platform knows who is really 15 years old. Age on Snapchat, as on most apps, is still based on self-reported birthdays, which research has repeatedly shown a determined teenager can ignore. Friends-only profiles and the lack of favorites are real changes.
Whether they reach the teens who need them most depends on a problem the industry has yet to solve.
