One 14-year-old girl said she saw a video of a rape on social media
Parents are being warned that young people are watching graphic videos on social media network Snapchat.
New research has found vulnerable kids are seeing violent fights, stabbings, and sex acts involving children.
To try to understand what young people are viewing online and how it impacts them, researchers spoke to 13 children living in deprived areas across the UK.
The spreading of graphic material is being fuelled by large group chats, as well as the app’s ‘Quick Add’ function, which suggests people to be friends with, the study found.
One teen girl, aged 14, who is living with a foster parent in London, reported seeing violent or sexual content on Snapchat daily, sometimes several times, The Independent reported.
Strangers have sent her explicit pictures from the first day she downloaded Snapchat. While she said it disturbed her at first, now she desensitised by it, saying “it doesn’t really faze you any more”.
In one Snapchat group that includes around 60 pupils from her school, there are videos or images of people having fights, performing sex acts, or holding weapons, being shared.
She said: “A boy raped a girl and videoed it, and sent it around Snapchat and elsewhere. And then people started blaming the girl, saying it was the girl’s fault, but it wasn’t really. I think it was on the news as well. She was 13 and he was older.”
A 14-year-old boy from Glasgow spoke to researchers about how he often saw fight videos from his local area on Snapchat, including one-on-one fights and group fights with 15 people. He described people getting stabbed or hit with a hammer and a brick.
Anna Edmundson, head of policy and public affairs at the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), said the findings were “extremely worrying”.
A Snap Inc spokesperson said: “This content has devastating consequences for young people and there is no place for it on Snapchat. If we find content like this, we remove it immediately and take appropriate action. We regularly review our features to help make Snapchat a safe, positive experience, and continue to work closely with charity partners, safety experts, NGOs and police to tackle it.”
Children who are worried about anything can call Childline for free on 0800 1111. Adults worried about a child can call the NSPCC on 0808 800 5000.
