CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. Between 75-95% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.
Open platformOpen platform

Snapchat starts disabling friend-finder feature for UK children, regulator says

By Reuters News

LONDON, Nov 6 (Reuters) - British media regulator Ofcom said on Friday that Snapchat SNAP.N had begun disabling its "Find Friends" feature by default for child users in Britain, in what it called an important step to reduce the risk of online grooming.

The friend-discovery feature helps users find and add new contacts.

Ofcom said the change would make it harder for strangers to contact children on the image-sharing social media platform, one it considers among the largest and most popular online services used by children in Britain.

The regulator said in May that Snapchat was used by 32% of children aged 8 to 12 in Britain, despite the platform's minimum age restriction of 13.

Oliver Griffiths, director of Ofcom's Online Safety Group, said the change was "long overdue" and the regulator would monitor Snapchat's rollout of the new protection this month.

Snapchat had committed to make such a change in May, and told the regulator more recently that effective age checks for under 18s should be in place by the end of the year.

The platform did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.

There have long been concerns about online grooming on social media.

A 2025 analysis of British police data by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children showed that 40% of recorded offences involving sexual communication with a child where the platform was identified took place on Snapchat.

Ofcom has pressed major tech firms to introduce stronger anti-grooming measures. It has said that online grooming can have "devastating, lifelong consequences" for children.

The regulator also re-issued a warning to other tech companies failing to tackle grooming risks, saying they risked fines of up to 10% of their qualifying global revenue.

Capital.com is an execution-only brokerage platform and the content provided on the Capital.com website is intended for informational purposes only and should not be regarded as an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy the products or securities to which it applies. No representation or warranty is given as to the accuracy or completeness of the information provided.

The information provided does not constitute investment advice nor take into account the individual financial circumstances or objectives of any investor. Any information that may be provided relating to past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results or performance.

To the extent permitted by law, in no event shall Capital.com (or any affiliate or employee) have any liability for any loss arising from the use of the information provided. Any person acting on the information does so entirely at their own risk.

Any information which could be construed as “investment research” has not been prepared in accordance with legal requirements designed to promote the independence of investment research and as such is considered to be a marketing communication.