Snapchat under scrutiny from MPs over 'addictive' streaks

The firm behind instant messaging app Snapchat has told MPs it may consider changes to its friendship streaks, which have been criticised for being potentially addictive.
Streaks are used as a mark of a close friendship within the Snapchat app.
It involves friends exchanging messages but each response must arrive within 24 hours. Some Snap users juggle dozens, or even hundreds, simultaneously.
Snap executives told British MPs they would “revisit” the feature.
MPs from the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport select committee are exploring the addictive nature of social and gaming platforms.
Streaks are created within Snapchat if two users have exchanged messages for more than three days in a row. The longer they continue, the greater the streak.
Some youngsters ask friends to sign into their accounts if they can’t, in order to maintain their total.
Snapchat’s senior director of public policy, Stephen Collins, and Will Scougal, Snap’s creative strategy director, downplayed their significance, saying they were part of a suite of features introduced in 2015 and not an integral part of the app.
But committee chairman Damian Collins compared streaks to likes on Facebook and re-tweets on Twitter.
“It seems that the value of a relationship could be measured in the length of a streak,” he said, asking whether parents who felt that they were putting “undue pressure” on their children could remove them.
No, said the executives, but both promised to “take the thoughts of the committee on board”.
“Streaks were meant to be a fun thing. We have reduced them in size by 30%, in line with recommendations from the Children’s Commission, but we are always looking at whether we should sunset a particular feature and we will revisit it,” said Snap’s Stephen Collins.
The firm also faced tough questions about how it makes sure that children under the age of 13 are not joining the platform.
One MP said he had joined the app easily despite supplying a date of birth that indicated he was 12 years old.
Mr Collins acknowledged that it was “not possible to keep under-13s off any platform” because they can easily get around parental controls.
“We need a robust age verification system and we are working with the Home Office on this,” he told MPs.
The firm was also asked about a phenomenon of “Snapchat dysmorphia” in which filters and lenses alter body and facial features.
The executives were asked if they felt they were part of a growing conversation about whether such systems were encouraging young girls to have body issues and even depression.
They said the filters were “a fun way” of overlaying reality and that “more research was needed across the whole industry” on the societal effects of beauty apps and filters.