New media forms emerge all the time, often catching on with a specific demographic. Snapchat, the social media app in which users can send short videos or photos of themselves to friends, is generally targeted toward a younger audience.

But now, because of the face-changing filters that Snapchat has adopted, documentary filmmakers have found a new demographic that might benefit from this media form: sexual assault survivors.

Because sexual assault and rape is heavily stigmatized in India, sexual assault survivors are often left with no alternative but than to remain silent about acts of violence taken against them. Snapchat can change that. Because the face-changing filters allow users to record live video testimony without being identified, the app works to authenticate Indian women’s stories while maintaining anonymity.

Because Snapchat is an internationally used social media platform, those stories can then be shared with users around the world.

This is not the first time that a new, international media platform has acted as a way for victims of violence to share their stories with the world.

During the Arab Spring, activists took to Twitter to speak their minds about governmental injustice. That platform gave users an opportunity not only to network with others in the same position as them (and, in that case, call for revolution), but also to broadcast their individual view points without censorship from a media outlet or their nation.

-MaryCate Most