Kids & Family
50 Sexting/Texting Terms and 7 Snapchat Tips Every Banning-Beaumont Parent Should Know
Do you think Snapchat photos evaporate within seconds of delivery? Guess again – and that's just one thing parents should be worried about.
![](https://patch.com/img/cdn/users/231734/2015/05/raw/20150555479d3b5242b.jpeg)
Teens may be naive about the permanence of photos they send using the popular social media application Snapchat. (Photo by Ildar Sagdejev via Wikipedia/Creative Commons)
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Social media apps are ever changing and it’s hard for parents to keep up on the codes teens use to keep them in the dark about they’re saying as their fingertips furiously tap the touch screens on their smartphones and tablets.
The American Academy of Pediatrics found texting and sexting are a “normal” part of adolescent sexual development, but that doesn’t mean parents shouldn’t worry.
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And their worries shouldn’t be limited to the messages kids are sending back and forth on their phones.
Snapchat, an application for iPhones, iPads and Android phones, allows subscribers to quickly send photos that quickly expire, increasing the temptation of teens to send embarrassing photos. The photos disappear, but that doesn’t stop the person on the receiving end from quickly grabbing a screenshot and circulating the photo beyond its intended audience.
Snapchat does notify the sender if the person receiving it takes a screengrab, but there’s a fairly common workaround. A receiver could use a digital camera to take the screenshot, and the photo that supposedly disappeared could be saved on someone else’s device,
That’s Problem No. 1 with Snapchat, according to the parenting website fatherhood.com
Problem No. 2 concerns parents who may be – and experts say, should be – monitoring their teens’ social media use. The photos and messages disappear, so there’s no record that they ever existed.
Problem No. 3: Because photos supposedly evaporate instantly, teens may be more inclined to engage in sexting because they think the risk is lower their photos will be shared on the Internet.
Problem No. 4: Snapchat and Facebook both claim photos can be permanently deleted. Forensics experts have poked holes in that promise, though, and have said photos can be retrieved from smartphones and other devices. And guess what? “You don’t necessarily need crazy forensic tools that allow you … to access the information,” Andrea London, of the forensics firm Stroz Friedberg, told Mashable.
Problem No. 5: Snapchat owns royalty rights to every “Snap,” or photo message, that users send. According to the application terms of use, Snapchat retains “”nonexclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, sublicensable and transferable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such user content in connection with the services, subject to your use of privacy settings in the services to control who can see your user content.”
Problem No. 6: You may need a lawyer. In accordance with the terms of use, users accept responsibility for activity occurring while they’re logged into the application. In one case, reported by the familyshare.com website, a 15-year-old boy and 14-year-old girl exchanged explicit photos, which the boy saved and his mother discovered. The families involved addressed and resolved the situation, but because the girl was 14, the boy could have faced child pornography charges and, if convicted, been forced to register as a sex offender.
Problem No. 7: Snapchat can become a runaway train if you don’t talk to your kids about the risks associated with the use. “Parents who allow their children to have SnapChat need to have a real, live, one-on-one chat … about the risks associated with the false sense of security that SnapChat may provide,” fatherhood.com said.
Now, back to the “old school” social media worries.
Here’s the list of 50 terms a Denver television station used to test – and stump – several parents to determine if they could crack the codes their children use when they’re texting or sending online messages on their phones.
A detective with the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office told the Denver television station KMGH that parents may be missing some red flags “because they don’t know the lingo or the language.”
Here’s a list of commonly used terms:
- 8 – it means ate, can also refer to oral sex
- 9 – Parent watching
- 99 – Parent gone
- 1337 – Elite, leet or L337
- 143 – I love you
- 1174 – the meeting place, meet at
- 420 – Marijuana
- 459 – I love you
- 53X – Sex
- ADR – Address
- AEAP – As Early As Possible
- ALAP – As Late As Possible
- ASL – Age/Sex/Location
- BROKEN – hung over from alcohol
- CD9 – Code 9 (parents are around)
- C-P – Sleepy
- F2F – Face-to-Face
- GNOC – Get Naked On Cam
- GYPO – Get Your Pants Off
- HAK – Hugs And Kisses
- ILU – I Love You
- IWSN – I Want Sex Now
- KOTL – Kiss On The Lips
- KFY or K4Y – Kiss For You
- KPC – Keeping Parents Clueless
- LMIRL – Let’s Meet In Real Life
- MOOS – Member Of The Opposite Sex
- MOSS – Member Of The Same Sex
- MorF – Male or Female
- MOS – Mom Over Shoulder
- MPFB – My Personal F*** Buddy
- NALOPKT – Not A Lot Of People Know That
- NIFOC – Nude In Front Of The Computer
- NMU – Not Much, You?
- P911 – Parent Alert
- PAL – Parents Are Listening -or- Peace And Love
- PAW – Parents Are Watching
- PIR – Parent In Room
- POS – Parent Over Shoulder or Piece Of Sh**
- pron – Porn
- Q2C – Quick To Cum
- RU/18 – Are You Over 18?
- RUMORF – Are You Male OR Female?
- RUH – Are You Horny?
- S2R – Send To Receive
- SorG – Straight or Gay
- TDTM – Talk Dirty To Me
- WUF – Where You From
- WYCM – Will You Call Me?
- WYRN – What’s Your Real Name?
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