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| New iPhone app destroys photos in seconds after their sent. |
Snapchat, a program that promises to destroy photos seconds after they are sent, may be promoting the racy activity among the younger set, Buzzfeed reported.
“The minute you tell someone that images on your server disappear, everyone jumps to sexting,” the app’s co-founder Evan Speigel told TechCrunch back when it launched, acknowledging that his creation may have some unintended implications.
Snapchat hit Apple’s App Store in September 2011, a timely debut given that both former Rep. Anthony Weiner and former Rep. Chris Lee of New York were busted for sending explicit pics earlier that year.
The iPhone app is different from other photo-sharing programs, like Instagram and Flickr, because users can control how long their snapshots last – up to a total of 10 seconds.
The app is rated for users 12 years old and up due to the potential for “mild sexual content or nudity.” But Speigel believes that the buzz around sexting may be all hype.
“I’m not convinced that the whole sexting thing is as big as the media makes it out to be,” he told TechCrunch. “I just don’t know people who do that. It doesn’t seem that fun when you can have real sex.”
While the program is designed to make keeping photos more difficult, it’s far from guaranteed.
Users are notified when a recipient takes a screenshot of their picture. But screenshots are still allowed, and users can then send that shot to others.
Speigel told Buzzfeed that he and his colleagues are “trying to do a better job educating our users and their parents” about the app’s potential pitfalls. They are also planning to add more information to their website soon.
The company’s privacy policy maintains that it “cannot guarantee that the message data will be deleted in every case,” adding that the messages “are sent at the risk of the user.”
The app’s limitations raise the question of whether its young users truly understand the consequences of sending a risqué photo with the program.
“The weird part is that it doesn't have the usual danger that most parents warn their kids of — that if you send someone a picture of your body parts, it can get passed around and shown to anyone and everyone,” an anonymous parent told Buzzfeed.
About 3 percent of teens have admitted to sending sexually explicit photos, videos or texts over the phone, according to a study published by the Pew ResearchCenter’s Internet & American Life Project.
Amanda Lenhart, senior research specialist with the Pew Research Center, said the reasons for sexting, whether you are a teenager or an adult, are the same.
“You want to be in a relationship, you want to be desired, you want to be cool or wild.” Lenhard told the New York Times earlier this year.
“Solving the problem is always a bit of an arms race; we have technology that allows us to do something, then we have to create the technology to help protect us.”
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