Snapchat implements new safety features for teens

Snapchat has been busy trying to tackle a drug problem on its platform

Snapchat is introducing new safety features for teens that limits the friend suggestions they get to people they share a certain number of common friends with.

This will be applicable to teens between the ages of 13 to 17 years old. Snapchat has not specified the number of mutual friends needed for people to show up in their suggestions. Snapchat has been combating a drug problem on its platform, trying to stop the spread of fentanyl and other drugs-related content.

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"Our position on this has always been clear: we have absolutely zero tolerance for drug dealing on Snapchat," the company said in a blog post.

"We are continuing to develop new measures to keep our community safe on Snapchat, and have made significant operational improvements over the past year toward our goal of eradicating drug dealers from our platform."

The platform announced that it would be partnering with Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America and Truth Initiative, to provide in-app resources on Snapchat's Heads Up portal.

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Snapchat said the platform has increased its detection rates for drug content by 50% compared to last year, and 88% of drug related content uncovered is now automatically detected by the company's machine learning and AI algorithms.

In the coming months, Snapchat will be sharing more details on new parental control tools that they are working on, and said that they were designed to give more insight to parents on who their teens were talking with on Snapchat.