Slash Gear: The shady side of Snapchat
May 10
In an age where TikTok, Instagram, and X (formerly Twitter) are the top dogs, it's easy to forget that once upon a time Snapchat was what all the cool kids were doing. Depending on the circles you hung out in and the friends you had circa 2015, you might have told someone to "Snap" you in the same way a person "Tweets" (sorry, "Xes") or "Duets."
It almost — but not quite — shifted our communication from texts to our faces with the licking dog filter. Despite no longer being as trendy as it was in its heyday, Snapchat now has more users than ever before (almost a billion, to be more precise), and for the first time in its history has achieved many tech companies' biggest goal: profitability.
It almost — but not quite — shifted our communication from texts to our faces with the licking dog filter. Despite no longer being as trendy as it was in its heyday, Snapchat now has more users than ever before (almost a billion, to be more precise), and for the first time in its history has achieved many tech companies' biggest goal: profitability.
That last bit always raises an eyebrow, begging the question: Just what sort of deal with the devil did Snapchat have to keep its head above water? To the shock of no one familiar with the tech industry, this service has a dark side. Snapchat is neither private nor safe, and its slimy underbelly doesn't always get its share of the limelight when headlines focus on Facebook's Cambridge Analytica kerfuffle or Elon Musk's latest Twitter scandal. So today, we're taking a brief dive into the less savory chapters in the annals of Snapchat's history.
Snapchat can't guarantee message deletion
Snapchat's foundational selling point can be summarized thusly: You send your friend a one-time picture message, and then it disappears forever. Everything else the app does is just window dressing. This would make it deeply concerning, then, if those messages aren't guaranteed to be deleted. Spoiler alert: they aren't, to an extent. The FTC took Snapchat to court over this false advertising in 2014 when it was discovered that the disappearing promise was faulty at best.
To be fair to Snapchat, the photos did (and do) technically disappear from its servers, but there were (and are) ways to subvert this. As the old adage goes, you can't trust that anything is ever completely deleted from the internet; someone somewhere could have saved it. Snapchat users, the FTC alleged in the ruling, could log in to third-party apps to save their pals' ephemeral snaps or access them encrypted outside Snapchat's app sandbox in their phone's file directory. In some cases, simply using an outdated iOS device was enough to circumvent Snapchat's screenshot notification, meaning users might have no idea a friend was saving sent snaps. The FTC's charges also included undisclosed data collection practices and a failure to avert a security breach — something we'll get into later. The end result was that Snapchat axed the claim of 100% guaranteed disappearing messages from its policies.
To be fair to Snapchat, the photos did (and do) technically disappear from its servers, but there were (and are) ways to subvert this. As the old adage goes, you can't trust that anything is ever completely deleted from the internet; someone somewhere could have saved it. Snapchat users, the FTC alleged in the ruling, could log in to third-party apps to save their pals' ephemeral snaps or access them encrypted outside Snapchat's app sandbox in their phone's file directory. In some cases, simply using an outdated iOS device was enough to circumvent Snapchat's screenshot notification, meaning users might have no idea a friend was saving sent snaps. The FTC's charges also included undisclosed data collection practices and a failure to avert a security breach — something we'll get into later. The end result was that Snapchat axed the claim of 100% guaranteed disappearing messages from its policies.
Snapchat doesn't prevent others from saving your snaps
The disappearing messages claim is misleading at best, but what's more concerning, is that Snapchat doesn't make any effort to stop other users from saving your snaps when it absolutely could. Screenshot-blocking has been a feature common in privacy-oriented apps for years; WhatsApp, as one example, does not allow others to screenshot your view-once media or profile picture. It even goes a step further by letting you delete sent photos from your friend's camera roll within a certain period, even if they weren't set to view once. Snapchat doesn't give any option whatsoever to prevent unwanted screenshots. At most, it sends you a notification that your snap was screenshotted, and even that can be circumvented in several ways.
To be fair to Snapchat, the photos did (and do) technically disappear from its servers, but there were (and are) ways to subvert this. As the old adage goes, you can't trust that anything is ever completely deleted from the internet; someone somewhere could have saved it. Snapchat users, the FTC alleged in the ruling, could log in to third-party apps to save their pals' ephemeral snaps or access them encrypted outside Snapchat's app sandbox in their phone's file directory. In some cases, simply using an outdated iOS device was enough to circumvent Snapchat's screenshot notification, meaning users might have no idea a friend was saving sent snaps. The FTC's charges also included undisclosed data collection practices and a failure to avert a security breach — something we'll get into later. The end result was that Snapchat axed the claim of 100% guaranteed disappearing messages from its policies.
To be fair to Snapchat, the photos did (and do) technically disappear from its servers, but there were (and are) ways to subvert this. As the old adage goes, you can't trust that anything is ever completely deleted from the internet; someone somewhere could have saved it. Snapchat users, the FTC alleged in the ruling, could log in to third-party apps to save their pals' ephemeral snaps or access them encrypted outside Snapchat's app sandbox in their phone's file directory. In some cases, simply using an outdated iOS device was enough to circumvent Snapchat's screenshot notification, meaning users might have no idea a friend was saving sent snaps. The FTC's charges also included undisclosed data collection practices and a failure to avert a security breach — something we'll get into later. The end result was that Snapchat axed the claim of 100% guaranteed disappearing messages from its policies.
Snapchat doesn't prevent others from saving your snaps
The disappearing messages claim is misleading at best, but what's more concerning, is that Snapchat doesn't make any effort to stop other users from saving your snaps when it absolutely could. Screenshot-blocking has been a feature common in privacy-oriented apps for years; WhatsApp, as one example, does not allow others to screenshot your view-once media or profile picture. It even goes a step further by letting you delete sent photos from your friend's camera roll within a certain period, even if they weren't set to view once. Snapchat doesn't give any option whatsoever to prevent unwanted screenshots. At most, it sends you a notification that your snap was screenshotted, and even that can be circumvented in several ways.
Third-party Snapchat apps have existed for years, allowing users to save any in-app media they like. Snapchat officially banned these in 2015, but many are still out there. Search "how to save a snap" in Google and you'll stumble upon guide after guide showing you how to do it with ease, third-party app or not. To be fair to Snapchat, even the strictest screenshot-blocking is not bulletproof — anyone can take a picture of their screen with another phone — but that doesn't change the fact that it could at least offer screenshot-blocking for users who desire it.
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