Snapchat is trying to give younger kids the fun of snapping, drawing, and editing, without any of the privacy concerns that have plagued the nascent social network. So long as those kids don’t mind losing the main feature of Snapchat — ephemeral photo swapping — they can now use SnapKidz, an offline mode devoid of any social features that’s automatically enabled for users under 13. The app previously didn’t allow pre-teens to sign up at all, but it’s now opened the new mode for iOS users — and it may come to Android down the line as well. Though SnapKidz does away with the true ethos of Snapchat, it’s probably a better alternative than having younger kids sign up for an account by lying about their ages.
Snapchat’s new SnapKidz feature is all snapping without any chatting
is The Verge’s executive editor. He has covered tech, policy, and online creators for over a decade.
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