Snapchat, one of the fastest growing social media in Netherlands, starts fighting "fake news"

Snapchat recently announced that it putting stricter measures in place against misleading or incorrect news articles on Snapchat Discover, the app's news section. This is good news for the nearly 1.9 million Dutch who have Snapchat - one of the fastest growing social media platforms in the Nethrlands - installed on their phones.

The platform grew from around 500 thousand daily users in 2015 to 960 thousand last year, according to iPhoned.nl. Only Instagram is doing better, with its daily users increasing from 992 thousand to 1.5 million in the same period.

On Monday Snapchat adjusted the guidelines for publishers using Discover, NU.nl reports. Publishers may no longer use misleading methods - such as a provocative picture that has nothing to do with a story, or so called click-bait headlines - to seduce users to open articles. Explicit images are no longer allowed on Discover, unless they add clear value to the news article. Articles that are not factually correct are also no longer allowed. And starting in February, publishers will have the option to block some articles for minor users, such as stories that contain shocking images. 

According to the newspaper, the stricter guidelines are indicative of the role Snapchat sees itself in. Other social media platforms like Facebook tend to deny that they are media platforms, stating that they are only neutral platforms. With these new guidelines, Snapchat is taking on more of an editorial role. In various country Snapchat also has editorial teams that compile stories based on users' Snaps.