Around 200,000 photos plus video messages sent via Snapchat were
reportedly hacked and released on the site 4chan, on Thursday. Users of
4chan are calling the event the “Snappening.” 4chan is notably where the
hacked nude photos of celebrities were posted in late August.
Snapchat
is an app that allows users to send ephemeral messages — photo or video
— which disappear after up to 10 seconds. Many have deemed it a
“sexting” app, as it can be used to send racy photos with the idea that
they’ll soon vanish. It has been noted that most people sent photos of cats along with selfies.
(However, users on the receiving end can take a screenshot, which
senders are notified about. Also, there are third party apps that allow
snapchat users to store photos without senders knowing.)
Reports
state that Snapchat itself was not hacked, but rather one of these
third-party apps, which allows users to save photos. This massive breach
of privacy and security released 200,000 photos, which were collected
over years, and according to Business Insider
this could include racy photos from underage users. If there are nude
photos, this sick breach of privacy would also be considered child
pornography, and those who have distributed the photos or are in
possession of the photos could face jail-time.
“Snapchatters were
victimized by their use of third-party apps to send and receive Snaps, a
practice that we expressly prohibit in our Terms of Use precisely
because they compromise our users’ security,” a Snapchat spokeswoman
wrote to the Huffington Post. She stated that Snapchat warns users not to utilize third-party apps, because it could compromise privacy.
This
entire event — happening on the heals of the release of celebrity nude
photos — is truly abominable. It displays a complete lack of empathy, a
disregard for privacy and makes it clear that hackers (and 4chan users)
have no respect or understanding of consent.
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Releasing
somebody’s private photos or videos — sexually explicit or not —
without their permission is a clear violation of a person’s privacy and
body. It is digital theft, and potentially digital sexual assault. And
it doesn’t make it any less real or hurtful given that the photo may
have been a selfie or cat picture — and it makes it all the more
upsetting it it is a nude photo especially of someone underage.
These photos sent via Snapchat were intended to disappear, not end up on the Internet in a
database on
4chan. They were not posted with the owners’ express permission or on
their own volition. The photos — 200,000 of them — were posted, and
apparently downloaded, without owners of the photos having any say.
And it is not the users’ fault.
Which
leads us to the problem with Snapchat’s response: it is a shoddy form
of victim-blaming. “Hey, it isn’t our fault! We told you not to download
these apps!” It is the same as saying don’t take the photo, don’t send
the photo, use our app (worth billions) at your own risk of leaked
photos. Senders of “snaps” may not know if those on the receiving end
are using a third party app. How are they to protect themselves from
somebody breaking in and stealing photos?
Also it is worth pointing out that in May, Snapchat was charged by the FTC for misleading
users into thinking that they had privacy and that their photos would disappear, which is not always true.
“If
a company markets privacy and security as key selling points in
pitching its service to consumers, it is critical that it keep those
promises,” FTC chairwoman Edith Ramirez said in a statement. “Any
company that makes misrepresentations to consumers about its privacy and
security practices risks F.T.C. action.”
At the time Snapchat acknowledged their errors with the following statement:
“While
we were focused on building, some things didn’t get the attention they
could have. One of those was being more precise with how we communicated
with the Snapchat community. This morning we entered into a consent
decree with the FTC that addresses concerns raised by the commission.
Even before today’s consent decree was announced, we had resolved most
of those concerns over the past year by improving the wording of our
privacy policy, app description, and in-app just-in-time notifications.
And we continue to invest heavily in security and countermeasures to
prevent abuse.”
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