Commentary

What Is Snap Playing At?

This could be the Friday ramblings of a Gen X dinosaur who isn't down with how Millennials and Gen Z people choose to interact, but what on earth is Snap playing at? To put it another way -- when I get a letter from my kids' headmistress about the dangers of Snap Maps, then I know something has gone seriously awry.

Is it (literally) stalking controversy by courting accusations of privacy infringements? If it were just Snap Maps, you might think it was just one poor decision. However, if we go back a little, you would think Snap learned a lesson about privacy after its spectacles flopped. Didn't they see what happened to Google Glass? People don't want to look like morons, and other members of the public don't want to have their privacy invaded by people who look like morons.

When you are already interacting with an app that, by definition, means you have a mobile phone up and running, do you need a pair of specs to take pictures? Surely you have a smartphone for that?

So first of all, Snap didn't realise that eyewear that takes pictures is just plain spooky. It was an expensive mistake that Google made and you would think a recently floated company would be keen to avoid proving the folly again.

But then, just when you thought they couldn't do anything more potentially intrusive, we have Snap Maps. Nadia Sawalha is well known for being on the daytime tv show "Loose Women," and that fame has ensured her video about Snap Maps has gone viral. She and her daughter point out that it's pretty creepy being able to follow people around, particularly when Snapchat is so popular with teenagers and Millennials.

Today, there is another warning from the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) that one in three youngsters admit they have added a stranger to their friends list in the past six months. That's means there are a lot of people out there that young people are connected to that they don't really know. The ability for strangers to plot where their "friends" are is obviously a recipe for stalking. 

Snap has instantly pointed out that the feature offers users settings including a "ghost" mode where their position is not plotted. Social media sites and the wider internet have been awash with articles urging parents to ensure that this is the setting their children use. The fear is, of course, that children set it to work with just their friends, forgetting that they have added people they don't know to their list.

This reminds me of a discussion I recently had with the founder of an app that was called Sup. It allowed people to plot where their contacts were on a map. The thing is, it didn't gain traction for the very good reason that most people don't want to know where their social media contacts are, the founder admitted.

We all have close friends whom we will alert when want to meet up, but most of the time, we have no intention or desire to meet up with the people on our friends or follower lists on social sites. As the app founder quipped, tracking solved a problem that nobody really has.

So it just seems very strange to me that Snap would not have learned two very simple lessons. People don't want picture-taking glasses, nor do they want to have their privacy infringed by those wearing them. They also don't really want to know where their "friends" are at any given time. It's not just invasive -- it's simply not popular. Given the young user base, you can add that it's also far from popular with parents who are struggling to monitor their children's social media use.

This brings us back to the original question: what the hell is Snapchat playing at? I ask because I simply haven't got a clue.

Next story loading loading..