Snapchat CEO Is The Only Person Who Mentions The Number Of Child Sexual Exploitation Cases On His Platform

Snapchat co-founder and CEO Evan Spiegel (photo: Snap Inc.)

JAKARTA - Snapchat co-founder and CEO Evan Spiegel has just announced that Snapchat's online service is now being used by more than 800 million users worldwide.

Snap Inc. is one of many companies that always prioritize the safety of children and adolescents on its platform. Therefore, in 2022 Snapchat will launch the Family Center feature.

However, during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on children's safety, Spiegel revealed that there were 20 million teenagers using Snapchat in the United States and about 200,000 parents using Family Center surveillance controls.

He also said there were only about 400,000 teenage accounts that had been linked to parents' accounts through the Family Center. Spiegel's testimony marked the first time Snap has shared real-world metrics about using Snapchat's parents' controls.

"I would like to acknowledge the online hazard survivors and the families here today who have suffered the loss of loved ones. I want to be clear that we understand our responsibility to help maintain the security of our community," Spiegel said in an open letter on the company's official website.

Spiegel also admitted that last year, they had made 690,000 reports to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, leading to more than 1,000 arrests.

"We also removed 2.2 million pieces of drug-related content and blocked 705,000 related accounts," he explained. Through this recognition, Spiegel is the only CEO of a large platform that shares numbers in response to Senator Padilla's questions.