I’ve been trying to migrate away from snapchat for years now because everything about it irritates me but I’ve still got like 3 stragglers for whom it is my main form of communication.
I’ve been trying to migrate away from snapchat for years now because everything about it irritates me but I’ve still got like 3 stragglers for whom it is my main form of communication.
I’ve never given Snapchat access to my contacts ever. It’s not only blocked in the app, but also on the system level. And yet I still get connection suggestions “from your contacts”. It’s infuriating
TikTok did the same shit back when I used it. It’s weird because I’ve always kept my internet life separate from my personal life, and now every app is begging to show my closest friends and family my shitposts, political takes and NSFW content. I’m mostly done with traditional social media by now at this point anyway. I’ve managed to kick tiktok and am now permanently banned from reddit so hopefully I won’t get sucked back in.
I’m pretty sure they connect it to your device ID
If you logged in using a phone number they’re referencing you from other people who have you in their contacts.
If you tell them no, they just dick you from another angle
Yup, you just gotta do it once
This is what I thought too until I noticed the contacts listed were using the names I have for them - “apprehension”, “brazzle”, “dizzy”, “momster”, “Jared who hit me”.
They’re not using another angle to dick people over, they’re just ignoring security preferences and blaming us for getting mad
maybe you’ve allowed contacts in the OS?
I have not, and I made extra sure of that
If you can prove that, you’d probably have a nice story on your hand. I don’t think there’s currently a known way an app can bypass system permissions for contacts on current Android/iOS.
Just to follow up here, and to share what I’ve got
“Invite to Snapchat” from my contacts, with their specific names:
and the permissions for Snapchat, showing contacts is not allowed:
After looking at this, I set everything to “ask every time”. I also removed access to the phone app… I haven’t talked to almost anyone on that list on the phone, but I figure it couldn’t hurt to further restrict.
I redownloaded Snapchat today on my degoogled phone since my friends use it all the time now and I’ve also seen that it somehow got all of my contacts. Turns out that it uploaded my contacts to their cloud without me clearly telling that when I first signed up.
To check if your contacts are in cloud: Go to your profile > Open “Settings” by tapping the cogwheel > Under “Account Actions”, select “Contact syncing” > Tap “See contacts shared with Snapchat”. You can delete your contacts there too, I just did that. If you have an Android phone, I’d recommend you to patch your app with something like ReVanced to minimize data collection.