Please, please, please don't arrange off-site meetings here!

Gang.

In the past couple of days I've seen a conversation arranging a Zoom meeting and a signature containing a switch friend code. And I haven't been following all these chat apps you've been building; I'm terrified to think what I'll find there.

I'm not Chicken Little; I don't think you're all going to be abducted by strangers pretending to be other kids. I know that the vast majority of child abuse is committed by relatives of the child or by authority figures such as teachers, priests, or coaches, not by strangers met on the Internet.

And I'm very, very sympathetic with the urge to meet new people over the net. The truth is, I have the same urge; I would love to meet you all and hang out together.

But that's not going to happen. And all it takes is one disaster, and Snap! will be dead.

I don't want to start banning people. I don't want to shut down the URL block so you can't build chat rooms. But I don't know what else to do if you can't control your own behavior about this.

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