Platforms used by children have not done “anywhere near enough” to clamp down on fake accounts, according to Rani Govender, NSPCC policy manager.
“It’s entirely unreasonable to expect children to be able to spot these and to be able to protect themselves from abuse.
“That onus really has to be on companies to think about who is able to create profiles and who is able to use them.”
To test how easy it is, we created an account for a boy, providing a date of birth making him 15 years old.
It was easy to add adults as friends though a pop-up did warn that the adult and the child “don’t have many mutual friends”, asking: “Do you know them? Check before you start chatting.”
After creating the account, the app suggested two unknown users who both appeared to be adults, one with facial tattoos, neither using their real names.
Olivia said before her encounter with Lipscombe, Snapchat seemed to offer “an easier way to talk to people.”
“Obviously you’ve got unrestricted access to everybody who has it and you can take photos with stupid filters that obviously make you laugh,” she said.
“But then when things like this happen you realise that it’s not as fun and simple as it seems because you don’t know who’s behind the screen.
“Even the thought of having Snapchat again, now scares me.”