Olivia Boon Tze Chuin’s discusses in her blog the privacy concerns of Snapchat and the ethical issues raised. However, I do not believe Snapchat is the issue; people using this app should be more aware of what photos they are sending. Living in this century with booming amounts of new technology we should know by now that once a picture is uploaded on any site or within any app it is always out there and no longer belongs to us. As discussed in her blog, the pictures on Snapchat can only be shown for a maximum of 10 seconds however; everyone has the option to screenshot the photo. Snapchat users are well aware of screen shotting pictures on Snapchat and the app even notifies the user if the receiver saved the photo. Therefor there is no excuse to assume that the photo will disappear forever. It is obvious that Snapchat owns every picture that is ever sent, just like how Facebook owns every photo that is uploaded, Instagram owns every photo that is added, and the list goes on. The other ethical issue discussed in her blog is how stalkers could easily retrieve photos and post them on the Internet. Yes, this could happen but that is the risk of using all social media apps and websites: users need to be responsible. Even if Snapchat guarantees the photos will be deleted forever, users should know that this situation is not realistic under social media circumstances. Though it is easy to blame Snapchat for our ignorance, we have nobody to blame but ourselves: be cautious of photos you send, you never know who might end up with them.
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