Exclusive: Snapchat kicks few children off app in Britain, data given to regulator shows
Snapchat is kicking dozens of children in Britain off its platform each month compared with tens of thousands blocked by rival TikTok, according to internal data the companies shared with Britain's media regulator Ofcom and which Reuters has seen.
Social media platforms such as Meta's Instagram, ByteDance's TikTok, and Snap Inc.'s Snapchat require users to be at least 13 years old. These restrictions are intended to protect the privacy and safety of young children.
Ahead of Britain's planned Online Safety Bill, aimed at protecting social media users from harmful content such as child pornography, Ofcom asked TikTok and Snapchat how many suspected under-13s they had kicked off their platforms in a year.
According to the data seen by Reuters, TikTok told Ofcom that between April 2021 and April 2022, it had blocked an average of around 180,000 suspected underage accounts in Britain every month, or around 2 million in that 12-month period.
In the same period, Snapchat disclosed that it had removed approximately 60 accounts per month, or just over 700 in total.
A Snap spokesperson told Reuters the figures misrepresented the scale of work the company did to keep under-13s off its platform. The spokesperson declined to provide additional context or to detail specific blocking measures the company has taken.
"We take these obligations seriously and every month in the UK we block and delete tens of thousands of attempts from underage users to create a Snapchat account," the Snap spokesperson said.
Recent Ofcom research suggests both apps are similarly popular with underage users. Children are also more likely to set up their own private account on Snapchat, rather than use a parent's, when compared to TikTok.
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