Europe

EU Probes Snapchat Over Alleged Child Safety Failures

Is the EU protecting kids from Snapchat or building a surveillance state under the guise of child safety?

Published MAR 27

EU Probes Snapchat Over Alleged Child Safety Failures

Story

Above: Snapchat is displayed on a phone on top of the EU flag in Brussels on March 12. Image credit: Markus Lenhardt/Picture Alliance/Getty Images

The Facts

The European Commission opened a formal investigation into Snapchat on Thursday under the Digital Services Act (DSA), suspecting the platform — which has around 94.7 million monthly users across the EU — of failing to adequately protect minors from grooming and recruitment for criminal purposes.
European Commission
guardian
EU regulators suspect Snapchat's self-declaration age assurance system is "insufficient" at preventing children under 13 from accessing the service and adequately determining whether users are under 17 to ensure an age-appropriate experience.
Engadget
Border Telegraph
The Commission also suspects Snapchat's default settings expose minors to risk due to features such as teens being "automatically recommended to other users via the Find Friends feature," and push notifications being enabled by default.
guardian
The Wall Street Journal
European Commission
Snapchat said it has "fully cooperated" with the Commission, engaging "proactively, transparently and working in good faith" to meet DSA standards, and that privacy and safety are "built in from the start — including additional protections for teens."
Border Telegraph
Le Figaro
Separately, the Commission issued preliminary findings against four adult websites — Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX and XVideos — for allowing minors to access content via a simple self-declaration click, with potential fines of up to 6% of annual revenue.
guardian
The Wall Street Journal
The EU investigation into Snapchat followed a California jury ruling that Meta and YouTube had harmed a young user through addictive design features, and a New Mexico jury finding Meta liable for failing to protect users from child predators.
Engadget
The New York Times

Sources Split

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The Spin

Pro-establishment narrative

Simply put, Snapchat is failing kids. The platform lets children under 13 sign up with a single self-declaration, automatically recommends teens to strangers and keeps push notifications on by default, creating a playground for groomers and drug dealers. The EU's Digital Services Act exists precisely for this moment, and enforcement isn't overreach — it's the bare minimum owed to every child online.

European Commission

The Wall Street Journal

Establishment-critical narrative

The EU is hiding where regulatory machinery is actually headed. Its investigations and legislation are aimed at forcing client-side scanning of encrypted messages. The EU's own legal service calls it general and indiscriminate surveillance — and once that infrastructure exists, mission creep is inevitable. Real child protection means targeted policing and funded enforcement, not suspicionless scans of everyone's private life.