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Related: About this forumSkout suspends teen community after child-rape charges
Flirting app Skout has suspended its teen community, following a report of three child-rape allegations stemming from the use of its service. Skout founder and CEO Christian Wiklund announced the suspension in a blog post Tuesday. "We are extremely sorry about this, but we don't believe we have any other choice," he wrote. The post and suspension came alongside a New York Times report about three separate cases in which three men are accused of raping minors they met after posing as teens in Skout's community for 13- to 17-year-olds. The alleged victims are 12, 13 and 15 years old. Wiklund told the Times he was "disgusted" and that the situation is his "worst fear."
The company -- whose free iPhone app bills itself as a place to "Flirt, Friend, Chat" -- said in its post that it opened up the teen community about a year ago after noticing underage users in the 18+ section. Skout also said that more than 25% of its staff is dedicated to "community management," and that it screens for suspicious or inappropriate content. The Skout app allows users to share their location, but Wiklund's post noted that the feature is opt-in and provides "general rather than specific location information."
But Wiklund admitted "these measures aren't enough. In recent weeks, we've learned of several incidents involving a few bad actors trying to take advantage of some of our younger members." The under-18 community shutdown will continue, he wrote, as Skout works to "build better safeguards" including age verification. The company is also working with a risk management advisory firm to boost its current security measures.
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Many comments complained that the shutdown is "unfair" to the majority of Skout users: "There's creeps on Facebook who take advantage of people but do you see mark zuckerberg shutting down FaceBook [sic] to the under 18 community?"
http://money.cnn.com/2012/06/13/technology/skout/index.htm?source=cnn_bin
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totally off my radar.
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)"We have no doubt that this kind of thing happens all the time," says Sergeant Amy Watkins, a public information officer for the police department in Visalia, Calif. "Predators are getting on to these locations apps. I'm sure these kinds of crimes occur and they're not reported."
The issue rocketed into the headlines this week when flirting app Skout suspended its teen network. The company, whose app zeros in on your location and shows you other Skout users nearby, made the move in the wake of three separate reports of men raping minors after posing as teens in Skout's community for 13- to 17-year-olds. The alleged victims are 12, 13 and 15 years old.
"For now, we believe that there's only one thing we can do: until we can design better protections, we are temporarily shutting down the under-18 community," Skout founder Christian Wiklund wrote in a blog post about the suspension. "We are extremely sorry about this, but we don't believe we have any other choice."
When it changed: "Check-in" apps like Foursquare have always carried risks, but techies say the location landscape shifted in mid-2010. That's when Apple added app multitasking to its mobile operating system, which opened the door to "background" location sharing.
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more on this story. just wow. those with kids allowed on the net. educate your children. me, i was clueless. but then, in our house, we really dont do social network, except me on du.