Snapchat joins Pornhub on EU’s child safety blacklist – Courthouse News Service

BRUSSELS (CN) — The European Union opened a formal child safety investigation into Snapchat on Thursday, putting the app in the same regulatory crosshairs as Pornhub, XVideos and other major pornographic websites — simultaneously found in breach of the bloc’s internet content law. The targets — Snapchat, PornHub, Stripchat, XNXX and XVideos — all stand accused of leaving minors exposed to harmful content through lax age-checking, inadequate safety settings or worse. In the case of Snapchat, regulators suspect choices baked into the platform leave children exposed to grooming, criminal recruitment and illegal content: Minors are automatically recommended to strangers through the “Find Friends” feature; push notifications run by default; and new users get almost no guidance on privacy settings. Age-checking is equally lax — Snapchat asks users to confirm they’re at least 13, but Brussels suspects the system neither stops younger children from joining nor flags users under 17 for stricter protections. Content moderation isn’t keeping up either. The commission suspects Snapchat’s tools miss posts pointing children toward drugs, vapes and other illegal products, and that reporting mechanisms are buried — possibly designed to discourage use. The investigation absorbs a Dutch probe opened in September into vape sales to minors
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