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Can we hide birthday on Snapchat?

Can we hide birthday on Snapchat?

Snapchat has become one of the most popular social media platforms, especially among younger users. One of Snapchat’s key features is the ability to share photos and videos that disappear after being viewed. This creates a sense of privacy and ephemerality that many users find appealing.

However, one aspect of Snapchat that some users dislike is the requirement to share your birthday. Your birthday is displayed prominently on your profile, and friends are notified about your birthday. This has led some users to wonder – can you hide your birthday on Snapchat?

Why Share Birthday on Snapchat

There are a few reasons why Snapchat requires users to share their birthday:

  • Celebrating birthdays. Snapchat wants to help friends celebrate special occasions together. Displaying birthdays prominently encourages friends to send birthday snaps.
  • Age verification. Requiring a valid birthday helps ensure users are old enough to use the app.
  • Personalized features. Knowledge of age allows Snapchat to customize and tailor certain features. For example, Snapchat Stories are ranked differently for younger versus older users.

So in short, Snapchat argues that displaying birthdays enhances the app’s social experience. It also helps enforce their minimum age policy.

Why Hide Birthday on Snapchat

While Snapchat has reasons for requiring birthdays, some users are uncomfortable sharing their birthdays widely. There are a few reasons why someone may want to hide or change their birthday on Snapchat:

  • Privacy concerns. Some users simply don’t want to broadcast their birthday to everyone on their friends list.
  • Age insecurity. Some users may feel insecure about their age, especially if they are older than their friend group.
  • Stalkers and harassment. Displaying an exact birthdate can potentially expose users to stalking, identity theft, or harassment.
  • Embarrassing birthdate. Some birthdates may be embarrassing, unlucky numbers, or have negative connotations.

So in summary, while Snapchat wants to encourage birthday sharing for social connection and age verification, some users have valid concerns about keeping their birthdate more private.

Is it Possible to Hide Birthday on Snapchat?

Unfortunately, there is no official way to hide or change your birthday within Snapchat. When you create a Snapchat account, you must enter a valid birth date. Snapchat’s Terms of Service state:

“You must be at least 13 years old to use Snapchat. You must provide your accurate date of birth…We do not permit accounts to be created using fictitious dates of birth.”

So Snapchat requires a real birthday by design. They do not offer settings to hide or alter a birth date after account creation.

Some users have tried to trick the system by entering a fake birthday when signing up. However, Snapchat’s algorithms often catch these inaccurate dates. Accounts with fake birthdays run the risk of getting banned by Snapchat.

Unofficial Workarounds to Hide Birthday

Because Snapchat does not allow officially hiding your birthday, users have come up with unofficial workarounds. Here are a few techniques people have used to obscure birthdays:

Change Display Name

While you can’t change birth date, you can change your display name on Snapchat. Some users have added emojis or numbers like 01/01 to partially obscure their real name and birth date.

Restrict Story Access

You can use Snapchat’s privacy settings to restrict who can view your stories. Setting stories to “My Friends” rather than “Everyone” limits birthday notification exposure.

Delete Old Friends

Snapchat’s friend notification system alerts those you’ve been friends with the longest about your birthday. Deleting old connections from your friends list reduces birthday notifications.

Temporarily Deactivate Account

You can temporarily deactivate your Snapchat account around your birthday. This prevents the app from sending notifications during that time period.

Add Fake Birthday

Some users report luck adding an inaccurate birthday along with their real one. Snapchat’s system can fail to catch two conflicting dates.

However, this workaround is risky and may get your account suspended. Only attempt if you are willing to chance a ban.

The Future of Birthdays on Snapchat

While completely hiding birthdays is not currently possible, there are signs that Snapchat may provide more privacy options in the future:

  • In 2019, Snapchat began allowing users to hide their exact age from friends. Friends only see age ranges like 25-30 rather than a specific number.
  • Snapchat received criticism from privacy advocates like GDPR when the friend birthday notification system launched.
  • Younger users continue to request more granular privacy settings around birthdays and age.

Potential Upcoming Options

Based on this, here are a few birthday privacy options Snapchat could potentially add:

  • Let users hide birthday from friends but still show age range.
  • Allow temporary birthday hiding during certain date ranges.
  • Enable users to exclude certain friends from birthday notifications.
  • Restrict birthday notifications to Close Friends list rather than all friends.

So in the future, we may see Snapchat roll out more customizable birthday controls. But for now, options remain limited without risking account suspension.

Conclusion

Hiding your birthday fully on Snapchat is not possible under the current rules. Snapchat requires all users to submit an accurate, real birthday for age verification and social features.

Unofficial workarounds exist, but come with risks of account banning. For now, the only birthdate customization allowed is hiding your exact age number from friends.

While Snapchat is unlikely to remove birthday sharing completely, we may see more privacy options in the future. But users who are truly uncomfortable broadcasting their birthdate may need to restrict story access or consider limiting Snapchat use.

Overall, Snapchat faces an ongoing balancing act between enhancing social connections through birthdays while also protecting user privacy. How they manage this tradeoff around birthdays could have significant impacts on the app’s future.