Snapchat encourages users to remove friends for their own safety

(Getty Images)

Snapchat is going to ask its users to remove friends in the name of safety.

The feature will ask them to ensure that they still want to be connected to everyone in their friends list - and remove those that are no longer relevant.

It will come in the form of a feature called Friend Check Up. Users will be sent a notification telling them to have a look over their friends list, and see if there are people who could be removed.

The feature is intended at prooting the idea that Snapchat is about making meaningful connections with people, not accruing more followers for its own sake.

Announced to mark Safer Internet Day, the photo and video sharing app said it did not want to encourage its users to create connections with people and accounts they did not know for the sake of it, and strangers who could expose them to negative experiences.

The social media giant confirmed the new feature would appear as a notification on a user's profile and would start rolling out to Android devices in the coming weeks, and to Apple's iOS in the coming months.

"We have all come to realise both the importance of digital tools for staying connected to one another - especially during the pandemic - as well as some of the potential risks that these tools can create," a spokesperson for the app's parent firm, Snap, said.

"One source of risk on digital platforms are the connections that can be created - sometimes at the explicit urging of the platform - with people who we don't know in real life and who may expose us to negative experiences, such as the spread of misinformation, harassment, or unwanted situations.

"At Snapchat, we built our app with those risks very much in mind. The architecture of our platform is designed to encourage connection and communication between those who are real friends, while making it much harder for strangers to find and friend Snapchatters.

"Today, on Safer Internet Day, we're going a step further by announcing our new feature, 'Friend Check Up', that will prompt Snapchatters to review their Friend lists and make sure it's made up of people they still want to be connected to."

Snapchat said the tool would "serve to remind Snapchatters that over time they may have added someone to their friends list who they may no longer want to be in touch with", and can be used to quickly remove such accounts without notifying the other party.

It comes as social media firms remain under scrutiny over their safety measures and protection of users, particularly younger users spending more time online during lockdown.

Campaigners have called for greater regulation of online platforms with harsher penalties for firms who are found to not adequately protect their users.

The Government's Online Harms legislation, designed to implement such measures, is expected before Parliament this year.

Additional reporting by Press Association