Hateful Content, Terrorism and Violent Extremism

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 hate, terrorism, or violent extremism on public surfaces (such as Spotlight, Public Stories and Maps). 

Snap uses automated tools to help identify content we have reason to believe supports, glorifies, or furthers the objectives of terrorist or violent extremist entities. As a member of the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT), we use GIFCT's resources to help identify and remove known terrorist and violent extremist content. We also work with third-party vendors and experts to help stay current on emerging trends in order to accurately identify and take action on such content. We also use signal-based detection methods to identify and disrupt violent extremist networks. 

We work with law enforcement, as appropriate, to prevent the spread of content relating to terrorism and violent extremism. Snap's approach is to maintain established protocols for assisting law-enforcement authorities globally, including dedicated channels for responding to potential imminent harm situations, subject to strict legal safeguards. More information for law enforcement can be found here.

We prohibit the following: 

• The use of Snapchat to further the objectives of terrorist organisations, violent extremists, or hate groups.

• Content that glorifies, praises, supports, or advocates for violent extremism, terrorism, or hate.

• All content that promotes terrorism or other violent, criminal acts committed by individuals or groups to further ideological goals. These rules also prohibit any content that promotes or supports foreign terrorist organisations or extremist hate groups—as designated by credible, third-party experts—as well as recruitment for such organisations or violent extremist activities.

• Hate speech or content that abuses, demeans, defames, promotes discrimination or violence, or incites hatred on the basis of race, colour, caste, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender assignment or reassignment, disability, or veteran status, immigration status, age or pregnancy status. These rules prohibit, for example, the use of racial, ethnic, misogynistic or homophobic slurs. They also prohibit memes that ridicule or call for discrimination against a protected group and intentional deadnaming or misgendering. Hate speech also includes endorsing perpetrators—or disparaging victims—of human tragedies (such as genocide, apartheid or slavery). Other prohibited hateful content include the use of hate symbols, which means any imagery that is intended to represent hatred or discrimination toward others.

  • These rules prohibit, for example, the use of racial, ethnic, misogynistic or homophobic slurs. They also prohibit memes that ridicule or call for discrimination against a protected group and intentional deadnaming or misgendering. Hate speech also includes endorsing perpetrators—or disparaging victims—of human tragedies (such as genocide, apartheid or slavery). Other prohibited hateful content include the use of hate symbols, which means any imagery that is intended to represent hatred or discrimination toward others.