Harassment and Bullying

Bullying and harassment are counter to Snapchat’s values. These harms can take many forms, so we use a multifaceted approach to help combat them. Along with our policy and enforcement, we use product safety mitigations and provide resources to users.

As a baseline, our policies prohibit content and conduct that mocks, shames, or demeans a person based on their physical appearance, personality, intelligence, or personal characteristics, as well as repeated mistreatment or unwanted contact. We also prohibit sharing private information or imagery of people without their knowledge or consent-- especially of members of vulnerable populations including minors, unhoused people, or those in medical or assisted-living facilities or nursing homes.

In addition to enforcing these policies consistently, we use our product design to help limit harmful behavior that may violate these rules. For example, we use default settings that require both friends to accept a connection before they can chat with each other.

Violations of our harassment and bullying policies include any unwanted behavior that could cause an ordinary person to experience emotional distress. We prohibit the following: 

• Posting content that mocks, shames, degrades, stigmatizes, or demeans a person based on their physical appearance, personality, intelligence, personal characteristics, or character.

• Rumor-spreading, including anonymously bullying or shaming individuals, or claims about romantic involvement (e.g. “shipping”).

• Mocking victims of violence, death, or tragedy or wishing violence, death, or tragedy upon another party. 

• Inviting harassment of another person by sharing personal or identifiable information together with encouraging harassment of that person (e.g., “doxxing”). 

• Sharing humiliating imagery of another person, such as AI-generated, digitally-created, manipulated, or illustrated imagery (e.g., cartoons or edited stickers).

• Sharing content featuring vulnerable people who may not be able to consent to their content being captured or shared, including minors, unhoused people, individuals who are unconscious or intoxicated, people with diminished mental capacity, and those in a medical facility, nursing home, or assisted living facility.  

• Repeated, unwanted contact, including using a new account to contact someone after previously being blocked or asked not to contact them. 

Snap does allow for commentary and criticism of public figures who are 18 years or older, provided that such content does not include discrimination, harassment, or calls for violence or harm. 

We expect users to respect others’ personal privacy. Snap prohibits the following:

• Sharing another person’s private or personally identifiable information (PII). 

• Sharing private content, including voyeuristic viewing or secretly recording individuals in private spaces, such as bathrooms.

We aim to balance safety and privacy in our approach to protecting users. We use a combination of automated tools and human review to prevent users from being exposed to harassment or bullying on public surfaces (such as Spotlight, Public Stories and Maps). 

We built Snapchat to connect real friends and limit unwanted exposure. By default, users can receive messages only from people they’ve added as friends and who are in their contact books. Users can also block users from seeing or contacting them. Profiles are private by default, and only users 16 and over in certain regions have the option to have a public profile.

We encourage users to report when they experience or observe violations of these rules. We take a victim-centric approach when evaluating harassment and bullying by considering whether a user perceives a situation as bullying or harassment when they are the target of such conduct. Our moderation teams aim to ensure that each user feels safe and comfortable using Snapchat.