Senator staff pose as teenager on Snapchat, get obscene content, invite to ‘sexualized video game’
Late. Mike Lee said Tuesday that his staff created a Snapchat account that pretended to be a young teenager to take a closer look at potential dangers to minors using social media. They were quickly flooded with sexually charged content.
The Utah Republican said his staff did not select any content preferences for the account, but simply entered a name, year of birth and an email address.
“When they opened the Discover page on Snapchat with its default settings, they were instantly bombarded with content that I can most politely describe as wildly inappropriate for a child,” Mr. Lee to Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube at a Senate hearing.
Mr. Lee said the fake child’s account received, among other things, recommendations for an “invitation to play an online sexualized video game”, tips on why the child should not go to the bar alone, and articles about “porn stars”.
The pressure of Mr. Lee on why Snapchat recommended such content, Snap Inc. vice president Jennifer Stout said she was “unfamiliar” with the content displayed on his fake account.
“I want to make it clear that what, content, and community guidelines suggest that all online sexual video games should be age-restricted to 18 and over,” Stout said. “So I’m unclear why that content would have popped up on an account that was for a 14-year-old.”
Mr. Lee described the fake account as representing either a 13-year-old or a 15-year-old child.
Ms. Stout added that although “the taste varies” about the content Snapchat promotes in its app, she said the content displayed there is not hurtful or illegal.
Mr. Lee replied that he thought the app ratings for different technology platforms were inappropriate.
“We all know that there is content on Snapchat and on YouTube among many other sites that is not suitable for children aged 12 or 13 and up,” said Mr. Lee.
Senators’ staff pretending to be children online have become a recurring part of Senate hearings on alleged platforms of technology platforms on children. Last month, Senator Richard Blumenthal, the Connecticut Democrat, revealed that his office posed as a 13-year-old girl on Instagram to learn about how children experience the platform.
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