Snapchat launches School Communities

Snapchat this week unveiled its new School Communities feature, offering students a novel way to connect with their classmates in the digital realm. This innovative addition to the popular social media platform aims to foster connections among students attending the same educational institutions, providing a dedicated space for sharing experiences and organizing activities.

School Communities on Snapchat function as cohorts that students can join to interact with their peers. The feature is designed to facilitate connections between classmates, enabling them to identify and communicate with one another more easily within the Snapchat ecosystem. Once a student becomes a member of their School Community, they gain access to a range of features tailored to enhance their social experience within their educational context.

One of the key aspects of School Communities is the ability for students to view Stories shared by their fellow community members. This feature, known as the School Community Story, serves as a centralized hub for content relevant to the specific school or college. It allows students to stay informed about campus events, share memorable moments, and engage with their peers' experiences in a more focused manner than the general Snapchat platform provides.

Beyond content sharing, School Communities offer students the opportunity to organize around common interests. This functionality extends to various aspects of student life, including extracurricular activities, study groups, and sports teams. By providing a dedicated space for these interests, Snapchat aims to facilitate the formation and maintenance of social connections that are often crucial to the educational experience.

To ensure the authenticity of these communities, Snapchat has implemented a verification process. The platform utilizes a variety of indicators to limit group membership to individuals who genuinely attend the same school. This approach helps maintain the integrity of the School Communities and provides a level of assurance to users that they are interacting with actual classmates.

Once a user successfully joins a School Community, they receive a special badge on their Snapchat profile. This badge serves as a visual indicator to other users, clearly displaying which community the individual belongs to. The badge system not only helps in identifying community members but also adds a layer of verification, assisting users in confirming that they are indeed communicating with someone from their school.

Snapchat emphasizes that School Communities are designed to help young people connect with individuals they know in real life. The community badges play a crucial role in this regard, helping to verify that users are interacting with genuine classmates. This feature addresses concerns about online safety and authenticity, which are particularly important when dealing with younger user demographics.

To join a School Community, students must follow a specific process. Users can initiate this by accessing their Snapchat profile and tapping the "Add School" badge at the top of the screen. From there, they can choose to add either a high school or college community. Importantly, to ensure the legitimacy of community members, Snapchat requires users to have an email address issued by their educational institution. This email is used to verify the user's identity, although it does not necessarily need to be the same email associated with their Snapchat account.

The verification process may take up to 48 hours, during which users should receive an email to confirm their community membership. In cases where users do not receive this email within the expected timeframe, Snapchat advises checking spam folders or attempting to leave and rejoin the community. For persistent issues, users can contact Snapchat's support team for assistance.

Snapchat has also implemented measures to ensure appropriate use of School Communities. The platform enforces its Community Guidelines strictly for all group members. In instances where multiple violations are detected, Snapchat retains the ability to pause posting in the School Community Story, thereby maintaining a safe and respectful environment for all users.

Users have the flexibility to leave a School Community if they wish to do so. This can be accomplished through various methods within the app, including holding down on the Community badge in their profile and selecting "Leave Community," or accessing the Community Profile and using the settings to exit the group.

When it comes to interacting within School Communities, users can add snaps to their community's Story in several ways. They can select the community Story when sending a snap, add content directly from their profile's Shared Stories section, or contribute through the Community Profile interface.

Comments added to a Community Story are visible to other community members, with the commenter's first name displayed. It's worth noting that anyone who sees a comment can view the commenter's profile by tapping on their name. Users have the option to delete their own comments, but they should be aware that if their comment is quoted in another user's snap, it will remain visible in that context even if the original comment is deleted.

In summary, Snapchat's School Communities feature represents a significant step in tailoring social media experiences to specific educational contexts. By providing verified spaces for students to connect, share content, and organize activities, Snapchat aims to enhance the digital social experience for students while maintaining a focus on authenticity and safety.

Key facts

Launched on August 28, 2024

Allows students to join verified school-specific communities

Requires institutional email for verification

Provides special badges for community members

Enables sharing to Community Stories

Facilitates organization around common interests

Enforces Community Guidelines to ensure appropriate use

Offers multiple ways to add content to Community Stories

Allows users to leave communities at will

Comments on Community Stories are visible to all members