Snapchat and tiktok

No, that's too cautious at that age. He needs to learn to manage these things himself. OP is being controlling and cruel.

I don’t think op is doing anything to her child. She’s being cautious. He can communicate with friends as he has WhatsApp. I tend to have an email every few weeks from the high school about social media incidents like bullying or sexual videos being passed around so it make sense to be cautious

Why can't he have snapchat? I never understand why people do this to their children? Your kid is in tears everyday and unable to communicate with friends? Why would you to do this to him? He is 13, not 8.

Agree with this. Snapchat appears to be current primary mode of communication for young people. They have a family setting for under 16s through which you can see who they have been chatting to (not what they say) so you can check they are only adding people they know. Better that it's out in open and observed than hidden.

Snapchat is full of groomers searching for young kids and since one of its "perks" is disappearing photos you will never know.

Tiktok, Snapchat and discord are the main reasons why the government is looking to ban sm for under 16s, surely that should be ringing enough alarm bells for you?

Snapchat is how all kids communicate with each now. They arrange meet ups and chat on it. I think at 13 they would be an outlier and different if they don’t have Snapchat and it could lead to bullying as they would be left out. You can’t wrap them in cotton wool forever and I think restricting these apps just mean they crave them more. Try chatting to them about appropriate use and what he would do if he saw an inappropriate video instead of an outright ban. He won’t spend hours scrolling on Snapchat as it’s just a messaging app like WhatsApp. Poor kid.
TikTok on the other hand-that is a complete brain drain and I wish it wasn’t invented!

I’m in the same situation. I’ve told mine he can have it during the summer holidays if he keeps his good behaviour up the rest of the school year. I’ve explained about Snapchat and how pictures disappear but people can screenshot them. I’ve also talked to him about how he must not say or send anything rude if you catch my drift. He’s agreed to show me his phone whenever I ask and if he receives anything inappropriate he is to tell me immediately as he can be in trouble for receiving things that are inappropriate. Tik tok is the same deal. I will be making my own account so we can follow each other and he also has a screen time limit. He has agreed to all the above, but we shall see how it goes

Snapchat is the lesser of the two evils in my view as the short form video content on TikTok just fries the. Brain without even considering the content. But you are doing the right thing.

Your answer is a dumb phone.