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App makes sharing explicit content easier

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Controversial mobile app receives funding boost as teen ‘sexting’ epidemic is revealed.

A controversial photo-sharing app dubbed the ‘sexting app’ is likely to receive an $8million boost from the same company that funded Instagram.

SnapChat allows users to share photos that ‘self destruct’ seconds after they are viewed by the recipient, with the evidence deleted from the company’s servers just as soon as the images disappear from the app.

The app will also let you know if someone takes a screenshot of your image, although if anyone does decide to make a copy, there is nothing you can do to retrieve it – perhaps the biggest flaw and most worrying aspect of the service.

Just last week the start-up, which only launched earlier this year, announced the addition of video to the app, meaning users can now share ten second clips with each other.

The app, which sees around 1,000 images shared every second, is popular with under-25s who are making use of it to share pictures they may not want to post on Facebook or Twitter.

Although its creators have gone to great lengths to deny SnapChat is a sexting app, and you would hope not all of those 1,000 images a second are explicit, it’s no surprise that the service is being used in this way.

SnapChat co-founder Evan Spiegel told TechCrunch:  “I’m not convinced that the whole sexting thing is as big as the media makes it out to be. I just don’t know people who do that. It doesn’t seem that fun when you can have real sex.”

For teens however, Spiegel seems to be missing the point.

According to a study by Plymouth University for the NSPCC, reported in the Telegraph last week, children as young as 13 are regularly swapping explicit images on their mobile phones.

Professor Andy Phippen, from Plymouth University, said: “This is mainstream, this is normal, this is almost mundane for some of the people we spoke to.”

The investigation by the NSPCC and Channel 4 spoke to children aged 13-16 over a period of six months, to reveal a culture shaped by easy and instantaneous access to hardcore adult pornography.

Dubbed ‘generation sex’ by the report, one 15-year old girl said, “I get asked for naked pictures… at least two or three times a week,” while one boy of the same age said, “you would have seen a girl’s breasts before you’ve seen their face.”

Both boys and girls claim to feel pressurised by the porn industry and celebrity culture to act and look a certain way, but according to Jon Brown of the NSPCC, it’s girls who usually find themselves coerced into sharing explicit images.

“Boyfriends normalise it – it’s the whole ‘If you really love me’ argument. And it’s often basic sexism, with girls being seen as boys’ property. We’ve seen pictures where girls write across their breasts ‘I belong to X [the boyfriend’s name]’,” said Brown.

Sexting also provides ready material for cyber bullying, leaving girls vulnerable to exposure online and the devastating consequences it can have.

In 2009 US teenager Jessica Logan committed suicide after a naked photograph she sent to her boyfriend was forwarded to classmates.

Closer to home, police have launched an investigation after explicit images of young women from Blackpool were posted online.

A Facebook group encouraged men and boys to post images that had been sent to them to ‘name and shame’ young women and girls.

One 22-year old woman said: “It ran on the premise of asking people to send explicit photos of girls… many who I suspect were under the age of 18.

“The abusive language and bullying targeted at the girls and other people who were reporting the page was horrifying.”

SnapChat has already spawned a Tumblr page charmingly entitled SnapChat Sluts.

The short-lived venture apparently showed images of women who chose to participate, but demonstrated the ease with which this ‘disappearing’ content can be captured.

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