Snapchat Safety
Are your kids sharing their location?
Snapchat is one of the most popular Social Media Platforms for students, but we need to be cautious regarding it's use to keep our students safe. If you do nothing else....see "Ghost Mode" below!
Snapchat's Family Center is a parental tool that allows parents to see who their teens are communicating with on Snapchat and view their location, while still respecting teens' privacy.
How to set it up:
Parents need to create a Snapchat account and add their child as a friend.
Once the child accepts the friend request, parents can invite them to join the Family Center.
The child must opt into the Family Center for the parental controls to be enabled.
Bark recommends setting up Family Center by downloading Snapchat on your phone, creating an account, tapping your profile icon, then the settings/gear icon, scrolling down to Privacy Controls, and tapping Family Center.
What it offers:
View their friends list.
See who they've chatted with.
Restrict sensitive content.
Monitor their safety and privacy settings, including story settings, contact settings, and location sharing on Snap Map.
Adjust Privacy Settings
Who can contact me: Change this setting so that only friends can contact your child.
Limit who can view your Story: Select "My Friends" or "Custom".
Disable location sharing:
Disable location sharing on Snap Map.
Use "Ghost Mode" to hide your child's location.
To enable Ghost Mode, tap the location pin in the bottom left corner of the screen, tap the Settings icon, select Ghost Mode, and then tap "until turned off" to keep it on indefinitely.
Verify email and mobile number: Encourage teens to verify their email and mobile number to secure their account.
Set up two-factor authentication
As always....be an engaged parent! Talk through this and other online issues openly and often.
Snapchat Testimonial!
Ben Tracy (safesocialnetwork.com) - I was recently speaking at a high school, and a student showed me the photo below of his Snap Map and has allowed me to share it. Before hearing my online safety presentation, he was sharing his location with more than 4,000 around the world. He estimated that he knew fewer than 200 of them in real life.
How can you keep your kids safe on Snapchat?
Your best bet is not allowing your child on Snapchat. Over the last seven years, I've heard thousands of heartbreaking stories about online predators, inappropriate pictures, and cyberbullying. About 70% of those stories involve Snapchat.
If your child is on Snapchat and removing it is not an option for your family, turn on Ghost Mode in the settings. Ghost Mode disables location sharing on the Snap Map. There are simply to many dangers and unknowns for children to share their location on social media.
Check out this recent TV segment where I talk more about the Snap Map, why it's important for parents to wait to give access to social media, and my run across America to keep kids safe online. Click Here
