On Saturday evening, TikToker Ophenya, followed by 5 million subscribers on the platform and 800,000 people on Instagram, extolled the merits of a dating app for teenagers during a widely watched live broadcast. The idea, according to her brilliant: “ find someone who secretly has a crush on you “. Users are invited to answer anonymous questionnaires about their classmates, since in theory the app is reserved exclusively for children aged 10 to 21, the majority of middle and high school students.
Behind this video there is above all a commercial partnership with obscure terms, which has allowed the app, Squashto find a place of choice on the App Store and Google Play Store, despite the risks to the safety of its (very young) users.
A disguised partnership and security breaches
In the company of Marc Allain, founder of Crush, the young woman then promoted the application, although no mention indicates that it was a partnership (which however was mandatory by law). Although the live video was later removed, the controversy grew rapidly, with many Internet users pointing out flaws in the registration age verification system and fearing that the application could become a hotspot for juvenile criminals.
Another point of vigilance, geolocation. What our colleagues come from BFMTV : “As soon as the account is created, without verifying that the age entered is correct, the Internet user is forced to accept being geolocalised and is asked to transmit all the contacts in his address book. Particularly sensitive personal data when it concerns minors. The application is also intended to be used within the same establishment. Therefore, every Internet user – including potentially malicious ones – can have access to lists of names of teenagers, attached to the name of their school or university. However, the platform does not allow you to send private messages. »
Change of strategy to acquire a new image
Added to all this is a dubious economic model, which makes users pay 3.99 euros per week for ” find out who secretly admires them » but also a competition to see who will put the most positive review in the app store to increase the statistics (and therefore sales) of the application.
Following very critical feedback from Internet users, Ophenya has reposted new videos with Marc Allain, this time correctly labeled as “commercial partnership”, in which we no longer talk about romantic encounters and seduction games. When questioned by Tech & Co, the founder of the app completely changed the commercial topic, ensuring that Crush is actually just a platform aimed at combating exclusion and school harassment, through positive surveys, moderated by his teams. On Tuesday, an update to the app complemented these statements, with a new, more neutral logo (it moves away from the purple flame of the previous design) and a narrowing of the target: if the 10-21 age range allowed connecting very young preteens with young adults, the application is now intended for children aged between 13 and 18.
Last August, another application of the same type, Meeting between teenagershad been the topic about a hundred reports to the Ministry of the Interior, before being permanently removed from the Google Play Store. Previously, many parents had shared screenshots of the app’s discussions on social networks, where adults could be seen making sexual innuendos to underage users, some even offering paid sexual favors. The fault lies above all in the lack of moderation (3 moderators for 285,000 users). A topic that remains completely unclear for the new app, Squash.
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Source: Madmoizelle
Mary Crossley is an author at “The Fashion Vibes”. She is a seasoned journalist who is dedicated to delivering the latest news to her readers. With a keen sense of what’s important, Mary covers a wide range of topics, from politics to lifestyle and everything in between.
