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SafetyScorer

Ranking

Safest Social Media Apps 2026

Every social network and photo or video feed we cover, from Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and X to Bluesky, Threads, Reddit, Snapchat, BeReal and China's Douyin and RedNote. Each score weighs how much the app collects and tracks for ads, how well it protects accounts, the controls it gives you, how it handles scams, harmful content and young users, and its record with regulators.

Updated · Scores update with each page

The ranking

  1. Social media

    Bluesky

    Bluesky collects little data and does not track you for ads, which puts it well ahead of X and Threads on privacy. The catch is that almost everything you do is public by design, direct messages can be read by moderators, and two-step login only works by email code.

    Score 69, grade C

  2. Social media

    Locket Widget

    Locket is one of the calmer social apps a teen can use, because only up to 20 accepted friends see your photos and there is no public feed. The weak points are ad tracking, thin security documentation and photos that stay on friends' phones after you send them.

    Score 59, grade C

  3. Social media

    Pinterest

    Pinterest is fairly safe for adults, with optional two-factor login and no privacy fines. The weak points are ad tracking that is on by default and a record of recommending harmful content to teenagers, which led to stricter teen settings after a UK inquest and a 2023 NBC News investigation.

    Score 55, grade C

  4. Streaming, music and games

    YouTube

    YouTube is one of the safer big platforms on security, thanks to Google's account protection, and it has no private messaging to worry about. The risks are what the recommendation feed shows children, scam ads and fake livestreams, and the amount of viewing data Google uses for advertising.

    Score 54, grade D

  5. Social media

    BeReal

    BeReal keeps posts among friends by default and has no fines, but since Voodoo bought it in 2024 it has become an ad business. It tracks users across apps, guesses interests from what is in your photos, and a complaint over its consent banner is under CNIL investigation.

    Score 52, grade D

  6. Social media

    Nextdoor

    Nextdoor is safer than most social apps for meeting real neighbours, because members verify their address and use real names. That design is also its privacy cost. Apple's label lists your home address and email as data used to track you for ads, and fake tradespeople and sellers still get through.

    Score 52, grade D

  7. Messaging and calls

    Snapchat

    Snapchat's disappearing messages and encrypted Snaps give it a better privacy design than most social apps, but it tracks users for advertising and faces a growing number of state lawsuits that accuse it of failing to protect children from sextortion and drug dealers.

    Score 52, grade D

  8. Social media

    Threads

    Threads runs on your Instagram account and collects the same 14 categories of data, now for ads in every market. Its DMs are not end-to-end encrypted. It is calmer than X, teen accounts are private by default, and it has no regulatory penalties of its own so far.

    Score 52, grade D

  9. Streaming, music and games

    Bilibili International (bilibili.tv)

    The international Bilibili app is separate from the Chinese one, with a cleaner record and data stored in Singapore. But its policy lets group companies in China access that data, says it sold device, browsing and purchase data to ad partners, and its 13+ store rating is below the 18 minimum it sets in some countries.

    Score 51, grade D

  10. Social media

    Lemon8

    Lemon8, ByteDance's lifestyle app, collects less than TikTok but still tracks you for third-party ads, and its Apple and Google privacy labels disagree. In the US it went offline under the TikTok law in January 2025 and its data is now covered by the TikTok USDS Joint Venture.

    Score 51, grade D

  11. Social media

    Reddit

    Reddit lets you use a pseudonym and tracks less than Instagram or X, but everything you post publicly is licensed to AI companies, moderation depends on volunteers, and the UK privacy regulator fined it £14.47 million in 2026 for letting under-13s in without age checks.

    Score 49, grade D

  12. Email, cloud and work

    LinkedIn

    LinkedIn is useful and mostly free of the harassment found on other social apps, but it uses your profile and activity for ads and AI training by default, was fined €310 million in Ireland, and is a favourite hunting ground for fake recruiters, including North Korean hacking groups.

    Score 48, grade D

  13. Social media

    Whee

    Whee is TikTok's separate chat and photo app, and it brings TikTok's data appetite with it. It runs under TikTok's general privacy policy, tracks contact info and identifiers, and its Google Play label says data is not encrypted in transit. No regulator has looked at the app itself.

    Score 46, grade D

  14. Social media

    Likee

    Likee is a short-video and live-streaming app from Singapore, part of JOYY's BIGO group alongside Bigo Live. It tracks your device for advertising, can read your contacts and installed apps, earns money from virtual gifts to live streamers, and was among the Chinese-linked apps India blocked in 2020.

    Score 44, grade D

  15. Social media

    Douyin

    Douyin is ByteDance's Chinese short-video app, separate from TikTok. It lets you switch off the recommendation feed and delete your account, but it collects a great deal, stores it in China, and regulators have ordered fixes to its data collection and fined it over unlicensed sellers.

    Score 43, grade D

  16. Streaming, music and games

    Bilibili

    Bilibili is China's main video site for anime, games and young creators, with 368 million monthly users in 2025. Its Chinese app tracks users for ads and stores their data in mainland China, Chinese regulators have repeatedly penalised it over content shown to minors, and its source code leaked in 2019.

    Score 42, grade D

  17. Social media

    Kwai

    Kwai is a short-video app that pays Brazilians in coins for watching and inviting friends, which makes it sticky and data-hungry. Its weak points are ad tracking, moderation of content involving minors, and open Brazilian cases over child influencers and disinformation. India has blocked it since 2020.

    Score 42, grade D

  18. Social media

    TikTok

    TikTok collects a lot of data, uses it for ad tracking, and has one of the worst regulatory records on our list, including €875 million in Irish GDPR fines. For children, the feed's design and default settings are a bigger worry than the China question.

    Score 41, grade D

  19. Social media

    Instagram

    Instagram has better teen protections than it did a few years ago, but Meta still collects and tracks more data than almost any app, removed its optional encrypted messages in 2026, and has lost two child-safety jury trials this year.

    Score 40, grade D

  20. Social media

    Facebook

    Facebook is not malware, and Messenger chats are now end-to-end encrypted by default. But Meta collects and tracks more data than almost any app, has the heaviest privacy fine record of any company we score, and scam ads and Marketplace fraud are part of daily use.

    Score 37, grade F

  21. Social media

    RedNote (Xiaohongshu)

    RedNote, the international version of China's Xiaohongshu, keeps overseas accounts outside China, but anything you share with users in China goes to Chinese servers. Direct messages are not end-to-end encrypted, and Taiwan ordered a one-year block in 2025 over fraud cases.

    Score 37, grade F

  22. Social media

    X (Twitter)

    X tracks users for ads, its paid blue checkmark makes impersonation easy, and its Grok AI tool was used to create sexualised images of real people, including minors, in early 2026. It has fewer privacy fines than Meta, but its moderation record is weaker.

    Score 37, grade F

Which apps are on this list

The rule: the app's main use is posting your own photos, videos or text for friends, followers or the public, and scrolling through what other people post. That covers the big networks (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, X, Threads, Snapchat, Reddit and the work network LinkedIn), newer and smaller ones (Bluesky, BeReal, Locket, Lemon8, Pinterest, Nextdoor and TikTok's friends-only photo app Whee) and big regional feeds such as Douyin, RedNote, Kwai, Likee and both Bilibili apps.

Some apps are left out on purpose. Stranger chat, friend-finding and anonymous question apps such as Yubo, Wizz and NGL have their own list, the safest teen chat apps. Photo and video editors such as CapCut are tools, not feeds. Widgetable shares pets and status widgets with friends rather than a feed of posts, and apps with a social side to another main use, such as Goodreads for books or Strava for workouts, are left out too. Live-streaming apps such as Twitch and Bigo Live, where you mostly watch a broadcaster, and messengers such as Discord are scored on their own pages.

How the order is built

Each app is scored on five factors. Privacy and security count for 30% each: what the app collects and tracks for advertising, and how well it protects accounts and stored data. Transparency and control count for 15%. Scams and harmful content count for 15%, which here covers scam ads, impersonation, what the feed shows teenagers and how much contact strangers get. The regulatory record counts for 10%. The full rubrics are on how we score apps.

The list is those scores sorted from the highest down. When we update a page, its place here moves too, so this text does not quote scores.

What the apps near the top have in common

They either collect less or show your posts to fewer people. Bluesky does not track users for ads at all. Locket and BeReal keep posts among friends by default and have no public like counts, which leaves strangers and pile-ons little room. Pinterest has no privacy fines and private-only accounts for younger teens. YouTube makes it near the top on security more than privacy: Google's account protection is strong, and it has no private messaging.

Why the biggest apps score lower

Size brings data collection and scrutiny. Meta's apps carry the heaviest fine record we score, including a €1.2 billion GDPRThe EU's General Data Protection Regulation, which sets rules on how organisations collect and use personal data and allows large fines.More in the glossary fine over Facebook data transfers and a €405 million fine over Instagram's handling of children's data, and juries found against Meta in two child-safety trials in 2026. TikTok has €875 million in Irish GDPR fines, and X has a $150 million FTC penalty and the first fine ever issued under the EU's Digital Services Act. RedNote has repeated orders rather than fines, among them Taiwan's one-year block in December 2025 over more than 1,700 fraud cases. Douyin keeps its data in China, and China's market regulator fined it about $8 million in April 2026.

What the score does not tell you

The score rates the company, not your account. The biggest risks on social media come through settings you control: who can message you, who can see your posts, and whether your location is attached to them. Spend five minutes in the privacy settings of each app you use, set your account to private if you do not need a public audience, and turn off location on posts. For a teenager, the most useful single step is limiting direct messages to people they already follow.

Questions

What is the safest social media app for kids and teens?

No mainstream social app is meant for young children. Almost all require users to be 13, and YouTube points younger children to YouTube Kids. For teenagers, apps with a small, chosen audience expose them to fewer strangers. Locket shows photos only to up to 20 friends who both accept each other, and BeReal posts to friends by default and shares only a minor's approximate location. On the big apps, Instagram makes accounts private by default for under-16s, Threads does the same for all teen accounts, and Pinterest does not let 13 to 15 year olds go public at all.

Is TikTok safe?

It is not malware, but it collects a lot and has one of the heaviest fine records of any app we score. Ireland's privacy regulator fined it €345 million in 2023 and €530 million in 2025, the second time for failing to protect European data that staff in China could access, and it settled a US children's privacy case for $400 million in August 2026. For children, the bigger worry is the feed itself. The European Commission found in preliminary findings in 2026 that its addictive design and minors' default settings breach EU law.

What is the most private social network?

Bluesky collects the least for advertising of the big networks. Its App Store label shows no tracking and its privacy policy rules out targeted ads. The catch is that posts, likes, follows and blocks are public by design. If you want a small audience instead, Snapchat encrypts photo and video Snaps end to end and deletes messages by default, but it tracks you for ads. Facebook and Instagram link 14 categories of data to you, including health and financial information.

Is Bluesky safe?

For adults who are happy to post in public, mostly yes. It does not track you for ads, and its moderation team handled almost 10 million user reports in 2025. But direct messages are not End-to-end encryptionEncryption in which only the sender and the recipient can read a message. The company running the service cannot see its content.More in the glossary and can be read by moderators, two-step login only works with an email code, and adult content is allowed behind labels. Bluesky checks ages only where the law requires it, such as in the UK, so the App Store rating of 16+ is the better guide for teenagers.

Which social media apps collect the most data?

Facebook and Instagram are at the top of the list. Apple's labels show both tracking you across other apps and linking 14 categories of data to you. TikTok and X also list data used to track you, and X lists seven types, including location and browsing history. Chinese apps such as Douyin and RedNote add a different risk, because some or all of your data can be stored in China, where the authorities have broad access to it.