A Stochastic Model for Estimating the Number of Offenders and Targets on Snapchat Platform

Abstract

Snapchat, like many other social platforms, provides mechanisms for its users to report content and private/public interactions that violate their sense of safety and decency. From our experience and common sense, we can safely assume that not everybody makes an effort to report, leaving potentially a large number of offending users and content unnoticed. The goal of this work is to directly estimate the probability of someone reporting on Snapchat using current in-app reporting options and, thereby, to provide estimates of the total prevalence (count) of offenders and users subjected to their unwanted, unwelcome or unsafe interactions.