The snapchat controversy

The first time I heard of Snapchat I was at work, and one of my employees was discussing her daughters cell phone usage.  She was explaining how her daughter used to text quite a bit but now more often than not she uses Snapchat. Let's face it being the person I am, curiosity got me and I looked this app up, and what I found terrified me.

From the Google playstore Snapchat overview page

"Snapchat is the fastest way to share a moment with friends.
You control how long your friends can view your message -
simply set the timer up to ten seconds and send.
They'll have that long to view your message and then it disappears forever.
We'll let you know if they take a screenshot!
Build relationships, collect points, and view your best friends.
Snapchat is instantly fun and insanely playful.
Show your friends how clever you can be and enjoy the lightness of being!
Front facing camera support on Android 2.3 and above."

WAIT!  You mean to tell me that this app allows me to take a picture and discretely send it to my "friends" with a self destruct option?   I can only imagine the implications to this, lets look at the case of  Cara Alexander *, a 27 year old high school teacher in Virgina.  Ms Alexander was arrested April 26th, and charged with allegedly sending nude photos of herself to a 17 year old male student.  How was this year long relationship discovered?  The boys parents found the photos of Alexander on their sons phone.  Now, imagine these same images sent to your child.  Insert Snapchat. How do you know what they are doing?  Who are they talking to?  Who are they sending images to? Receiving them from? And how ever will you know if your child is the victim of a predator such as Ms Alexander?  The hard truth of the matter is.  You won't.

I really must say that I'm surprised there wasn't more of an outcry against this app before. Are we living in such a bubble that we don't look at what's going on in the lives of our children?  Not surprisingly this app is not available only on Android devices, but it is also available on Apple devices.  Which makes me wonder, just how many of the students in my daughters high school are aware of this, and have installed this app on their school issued iPads.

But today, everywhere I look I am seeing shock and controversy, not to mention pure outrage.  What has everyone so up in arms? Well, don't you know someone figured out that all these images that supposedly self destruct after the approved number of seconds are really still on your electronic device for all the world to discover! In fact there are several sites on the Internet that give step by step instructions on how to recover these hidden files.  And while the creators of Snapchat, make a point of telling you that you'll be told if the receiver takes a screen capture, third party apps as well as a little tech savvy will allow the receiver to save your pictures and videos without you being the wiser.

My question to you all....which is more disturbing?  Snapchat itself or this new found breach?







*For more information on this case and the allegations against Ms Alexander visit The Virginian-Pilot article written by Lauren King