Snapchat is introducing some new ways to keep users safer with expanded restrictions on connections in the app, updated blocking tools, and new in-app warnings if a user has previously reported another user who tries to connect.

This is important because the user base skews to a younger audience, and so the app remains a primary connection point for teens. This is an incredibly high-risk age for youth to be learning about dangers of online connection, over-sharing, bullying, etc.

Therefore, these new features could represent very useful additions to many Snap users.

First, Snap is adding new warning notices when other people who have blocked or reported them before attempt to reach out.
Now, the users will be shown an in-app warning message the next time a person tries to connect who has already been reported by others. Moreover, if the user is trying to connect from a region where networks of the users do not reside typically, then the warning notice will also be provided.

Perhaps that's a better way to filter out some of those bad actors, especially repeat offenders trying to hook up with kids on the app.

Snap also added similar warnings for connection requests from people you don't share any mutual friends with last year.

Snapchat is also imposing more controls on friend requests from users whom you have no mutual connections with.

Already, Snap does not recommend any person with whom the user shares no common friends, and it is now going to extend further its restrictions on who is allowed to send friend requests to a user, depending on shared connections, and location.

"We will block entirely delivery of a friend request when teens send or receive a friend request from someone they do not share any mutual friends with, and that user also has a history of accessing Snapchat from locations commonly used for scamming. This will apply both to requests a teen initiated as well as to requests teen's received from a potential bad actor."

For these reasons, Snap says this will help expand efforts to combat sextortion scams in the app, by limiting connections from bad actors based on a broader range of parameters.

Snapchat is also upping the frequency of its prompts around location-sharing permissions inside the app, since it's also streamlining its display of location-sharing controls to make things clearer about who can see a users' location.
Finally, Snap is also amplifying the power of its blocking tools-meaning that you will block a user on the app and now also automatically block all new friend requests sent from other accounts created on the same device.

These are some of the good news updates, which would give protection to the Snap users. And again, this is the more youth-sketched app, which makes it fundamentally important for Snapchat to maximize the protections in such a manner that vulnerable users are not handed over to the wolves at the hands of spammers and scammers, to name a few worse ills.
There cannot be a 100% foolproof way of keeping everybody safe, but the improving systems of Snap are aligned with the high-risk activities.