Generation Z is leading to be the most influential generation of all time. They’re a generation of people who grew up witnessing injustices on social media, who went through a global pandemic during what was supposed to be the best years of their life, who can amplify their voices with a simple tweet, and who are excitedly changing traditional norms of society. 

Today’s Midterm elections in the United States are the first time we as a nation will be able to see the true impact of Gen Z on U.S. politics. To better understand Gen Z and their crossover with politics, we sent out a poll to over two thousand Yubo users of voting age in the United States asking for their views on the upcoming election and American politics.

Gen Zers (typically) are those born from 1997 to 2012, and currently counts for those of ten to twenty-five years of age. In the United States, Gen Z is the most racially diverse generation thus far with only 52% of Gen Zers being white, while their predecessors, Millennials, were 61% white. They also happen to be on track to be the highest educated generation we’ve seen, already enrolling a higher percentage of Gen Zers into college than Millennials had respectively. This sets Generation Z to not only be a more informed group, but a group who better represents all people within the United States.

Will Generation Z Vote in the upcoming elections?

Out of over 2,000 Gen Z users polled, 69.8% of surveyors said yes to voting in the upcoming election. By 2024, Millennials and Gen Z are estimated to account for the largest percentage of U.S. voters, giving them a real opportunity to make changes. But, what type of changes may these be?

What topics matter most to Gen Z when voting?

50% of surveyors said the Economy was the most important topic to them. This was followed by social justice at 43%, healthcare at 42%, and employment at 32%. Taxation, education and climate change all had similar numbers near 30%. Foreign policy/relations and international trade were the least picked options. 

Gen Z’s concerns match what their generation has gone through. Many have graduated from high school, expecting to move out, only to be hit with the high costs of homes, rent and interests rates, plus a worldwide pandemic affecting employment. Due to the increase of social media, Gen Zers are more aware of social justice issues than ever. In a study done by Reach3, they found that 77% of those asked, said TikTok helped them learn more about social justice, as well as politics. An early display of the power social media has on politics can be seen with one of the past presidential candidate’s rallies receiving over 1 million RSVPs, just for less than nineteen thousand supporters to show up in person. What caused this fakeout? Young supporters of a Korean Pop band wanting to make their idols proud by taking a stand for what they believed in. All communication was done strictly through social media. 

Surprisingly, when we polled our users asking if they share their political opinions on social media, 61% of users said no while 72% of users said they believed sharing political opinions on social media has an impact. 

How does Gen Z determine who to vote for?

We know the topics most important to Gen Z, but now, how do they pick a candidate? Well, in our Yubo poll, 68% of surveyors said they would choose a candidate based on their specific ideas and plans while only 17% said they would choose a candidate based on their party alone. Gen Z is seeking a candidate who truly represents their beliefs, instead of just representing a party they’re supposed to align with. They’re ready to move on from the traditional style of politics, and truly focus on the individual who can shape the country into the view they want to see. 

When asked if American politics are outdated, 64% of respondents answered yes with 55% of them blaming this on the two-party system, electoral college, winner-take-all voting, and the requirements to vote. 25% of poll takers, however, believed the two-party system is the key reason American politics are outdated. 

How Can You Be More Involved in Politics?

You don’t need to have thousands of followers to make a difference, all you need is to use your voice. First and foremost, go out and vote! After that, you can post your beliefs to whichever social media platform you may have. If you’d prefer to stand for what you believe in more physically, then volunteer for a campaign or attend peaceful protests throughout your community. You can join a nonprofit organization to spread their message or donate to your favorite NGO. However you chose to be a part of the change is up to you, and no matter how small the action may seem, it only needs to impact a single individual to ignite change. 

Generation Z is leading to be the most influential generation of all time. They’re a generation of people who grew up witnessing injustices on social media, who went through a global pandemic during what was supposed to be the best years of their life, who can amplify their voices with a simple tweet, and who are excitedly changing traditional norms of society. 
On the occasion of the Midterm elections in the United States and to better understand Gen Z and their crossover with politics, Yubo sent out a poll to over two thousand Yubo users of voting age in the United States asking for their views on the upcoming election and American politics.

Gen Z and Voting

Let’s be honest, despite being an extremely toxic behavior, trolling is harmful! Nowadays, everyone has crossed paths with a troll on social media, not only do they tend to be irritating, but what’s most impressive is their dedication to cruelty by creating drama and negativity online. You’ve probably wondered, how do these trolls find the time and energy to connect online and feel the need to purposely provoke or attack individuals. It’s difficult to understand their why, and sometimes, to detect it. Most trolls on social media do not have a precise purpose or plan, except for making sure they trap you into a conversation or situation you don’t want to be a part of.

What’s the typical behavior of a troll?

Trolling is essentially posting hateful or inappropriate content that targets others purposely or commenting virulently to someone else’s post. In most cases, trolling reaches a point where it can be considered as online bullying or harassment. They look to get a response, whether it’s forcing a reaction or emotionally affecting you, and then they keep pushing in that direction until it becomes impossible for you to not respond and engage into a never-ending and painful debate.

That type of behavior is difficult to combat and manage for social media platforms, governments and authorities as trolls create multiple accounts a week, jump from one to another with an obviously fake name and no location. For this reason, the trolls feel increasingly powerful and untouchable as they can’t be held accountable for their actions online.

Not all trolls are bad trolls though. Some are just trying to have some fun. They goof around and make jokes that don’t attack anyone. But, they still can be irritating for continuously spamming certain posts, by sharing hundreds of memes a day for instance. 

Being confronted with trolls online every day can end up affecting your self-esteem and mental health, especially if you are directly targeted or criticized by a crowd. Indeed, another typical behavior is to act as a group. Repetition is what can make it unbearable for you to ignore and when it reaches a point where you can’t ignore it any further. Online hate is not only criticisms about your looks, choices or personality. Online hate can include hateful comments about race, religion, sexual orientation, disability, and everything that makes you “you”. 

Long term, it’s tricky to keep a distance mentally with negative and absurd comments. This type of online activity can result in depression, helplessness and anxiety for its victims. That’s why it’s so important not to let trolling last and to address it right away by an adult or specialists that can support you in dealing with the trolls and how you respond to them

There are many resources online, we provide some useful links on our website.

There is no magical solution to remove trolling, of course, and most of the useful tips rely on you to follow them in order to deal with trolls efficiently. But there are a couple of things you can do to protect yourself from these behaviors.

First and foremost, and I know it seems easy to say, but just ignore them. Follow this famous quote, “Silence is better than unnecessary drama”. Don’t play their game, be better than them. The main fuel that feeds their harmful comments is your response. If you become a participant in the conversation, then they will see it as the perfect opportunity to ridicule you until you break. You can also help protect others. If everyone ignored the trolls, then, they would no longer have that entertainment value gained from trolling and they might consider investing their time into something else -- at least that’s our hope for the future.

Another tip is to find the right balance between monitoring your social media accounts to make sure it doesn’t escalate and knowing when to step away. When it becomes overwhelming, just close the app, put your phone away, talk to some of your friends, watch a Netflix show, take care of yourself until the wave of anxiety or potential anger has passed. The good thing about the internet is that there is such a flow of information and messages circulating every day that they will quickly jump into another drama starter and leave you alone. You can safely delete their comments, block them, and move on to a positive mindset right away. In addition, every social media has a support team you can report the trolls to, and of course, if you ever feel threatened, contact the police. 

How To Mute Words and Report on Yubo

Another useful thing to remember is that you can record or screenshot any negative comments or DMs you receive before they get deleted so that you keep actual proof of what happened, which would later be useful to try and catch perpetrators.

Even if their reaction can be unpredictable, before posting anything, look at it twice and make sure you anticipate the kind of replies you might get. Don’t forget you can delete your posts or comments at all times if you have doubts. 

Let’s be honest, despite being an extremely toxic behavior, trolling is harmful! Nowadays, everyone has crossed paths with a troll on social media, not only do they tend to be irritating, but what’s most impressive is their dedication to cruelty by creating drama and negativity online.

What's Trolling on Social Media?

Witches, warlocks, goblins and ghouls can give quite a fright, but what will await you on Yubo this Halloween night? Find your zodiac sign below to see what the crystal ball has predicted. 

Taurus - Reaffirming to the streamers that there will NOT be scary stories shared. While you love the festivities of Halloween, you can do without the spooky parts. Be ready to tell them every few seconds that there’s a strict no scary stories allowed policy in your livestream rooms. Let that Taurus energy shine. 

Aries - Falling for the Trick on Yubo Live. Trick-or-treat except it’s a trick with no treat. There’s not many ways for others to trick you, but people tend to get extra creative on Halloween. When you choose “trick” during the game on live, you won’t be expecting the jump scare you’ll receive. It probably won’t be a lesson learned, but your Yubo friends will make sure you don’t forget that moment for a while. 

Gemini - Ghosthunting on Yubo Live. You're determined to prove to the viewers that your house is indeed haunted. Whether it’s true or you made up the horror story about the sweet family who lived in the home 200 years ago, no one will know for sure. But, now's the time for you to show just how haunted that house is. The lights begin to flicker. Is it the ghost or did you overload the circuit? 

Aquarius - Making New Friends, completely unrelated to Halloween. What? It’s already Halloween? You’ll be just hanging out on Yubo, messaging some awesome new, totally not spooky, people. If you’re up to it, you’ll be extra kind and send them a special Halloween pixel. 

Cancer - Hiding from the scary stories in layers of blankets, but still streaming. You have a love-hate relationship with scary stories. They terrify you, but they also exhilarate you. You will invite different users up to share their spookiest story, and with each story you’ll grab another blanket to create a protective layer between the monsters and you. You’ll eventually grab your dog, cat, or ferret for more comfort, but you’re too enthralled by the story of the woman in the rosebush. Spoiler: it’s thorny. 

Leo - Collecting All of the Halloween Pixels. Did someone say limited edition spooky pixels? You love showing off your pixel collection, so you’ll make it more special by adding the most exclusive pixels you can. Perhaps you’ll even be inspired to mimic one as your Halloween costume: the evil jack o’lantern, zombie jock, stylish witch, classic creepy doll, hip vampire, or the Skeleton who’s bad to the bone? Just avoid dogs if you chose the last one. 

Virgo - Taking your Live audience on the carefully laid out trick-or-treat route you’ve made up. Would some consider you as a little old to be trick-or-treating? Possibly, but we celebrate you for embracing the Halloween spirit. All the past years of trick-or-treating have prepared you for this night: the night where you’ll reach a record high of candy received. Your viewers will be in awe at your skill and it may even inspire them to go trick-or-treating one more time. 

Libra - Brainstorming 100+ different halloween Live titles. Halloween Fun. Too basic. Ghouls and ghosts. No one will understand that. Pumpkin Spice. Yeah, you’ll figure it out eventually. You’ll keep changing it throughout your Live. The viewers and other streamers will critique your choices, and cause you to change the title yet again. But, eventually, you’ll come across the perfect spooky name for your livestream. 

Scorpio - Hosting the makeup or special effects Live. It’s time to show off that artistic talent you’ve been practicing for months. Will there be gore, fright, or just something that shows well under your ring light? We cannot wait to see what creative look you’ll be creating!

Sagittarius - Wearing the best costume ever. While the crystal ball can’t foresee what costume that is, it’s clear that it’s unique. That costume will become your new personality for the next few months. It’ll take over your profile pictures, profile videos, bio section, and you may still even wear it a few times afterwards when invited up to stream. 

Capricorn - Hosting the Halloween Dance Party. Scream & Shout because it’s time to host the most epic Halloween virtual dance party ever witnessed. Heads will Roll at the amount of Spooky, Scary Skeletons doing the Time Warp in perfect unison. Whether you’re playing Thriller or a Ghostbusters remix, make sure you join the party before I Put A Spell On You. After all, This is Halloween. 

Pisces - Sharing Their Craziest Halloween Story. What’s the scariest thing on Halloween? The antics a Pisces gets up to. We know you have some absolutely insane stories to share, and we’re sure your fellow Yubo users can’t wait to hear them. No matter how many times you’ll tell the story, it will never get old and it never fails to leave your listeners a little ghostly. 

Yubo Horoscope: Halloween

Despite both logos being yellow, Yubo is not affiliated with Snapchat and is its own live social discovery app for Gen Z. However, Yubo does have a partnership with Snapchat revolving around the Snapchat Camera Kit.

Yubo Origin Story

If you have spent time on the livestreaming section of Yubo, you might have noticed camera filters similar to ones on Snapchat. Again, Yubo is not connected to Snapchat, it just utilizes Snapchat’s Camera Kit – which is an AR tool that Snapchat provides for platforms to use! It allows platforms and creators to use Snapchat’s filter system and features in other apps. Snapchat is the social media hub of face filters - from ones that put fun little butterflies on your cheeks, to ones that completely warp your face. Snapchat filters have even begun dipping into augmented reality and filter-based games! Snapchat also has an open filter system, where practically anyone can create custom filters and upload them to Snapchat for others to use. Since Snapchat has become the mecca for face mobile app filters, they decided to share their technology through a Camera Kit. Livestreaming is a large part of how users interact on Yubo so it made sense to naturally integrate filters to make Lives more fun and comfortable. Instead of working from the ground up, Yubo partnered with Snapchat to use its already amazing technology to spice up livestreams with fun filters. That is why you will notice a small watermark that says “powered by Snapchat” when using them. In addition to the Camera Kit lenses, Yubo also creates its own filters and game filters to be used exclusively in the Yubo app! 

In fact, Yubo just debuted its first filter-based game, Pixel Muncher! In this game, Pixels, which are Yubo’s in-app digital collectables, fall from the sky, but so do spiked wrecking balls. The goal is to catch as many Pixels as you can without catching the wrecking balls. Players will also notice three hearts at the top of the screen, every time a player accidentally eats a wrecking ball, they lose a heart. If the player eats three wrecking balls, the game ends and shows them their score. After the player catches a certain amount of Pixels, the game gets faster and speeds up the rate at which they fall. Just like any other filter in the Yubo app, multiple people can play Pixel muncher at the same time. So don’t be surprised if you see a live with ten people on stage playing Pixel Muncher to see who gets the highest score.

Yubo added face filters to its livestreaming feature for two reasons. The first reason is simple: it's fun. With tons of filters for users to choose from there are endless livestreaming possibilities. Lives can be themed where everyone on camera is an alien or a Dorito chip - we don’t judge. Users are always trying to find new and funny filters to show their friends. The second reason is to help take the edge off of social anxiety. Some people are shy and don’t want to fully expose their face on camera, but still want to interact beyond being camera off. This is where filters can really help bridge that gap and make users more comfortable. With filters they can more confidently interact on screen with other users. Maybe all they need is a subtle filter that adds butterflies or flames to their cheeks, maybe they like using the Yubo-favored “big mouth” filter. Or perhaps they only want their eyes and mouth to be visible, so they lean towards the alien, sloth, or even banana filter.

Yubo’s Interactive Filters: Be what you want, when you want

Yubo is one of the few social media platforms that is actually “social”. When you think of social media, many platforms involve scrolling through carefully curated feeds or highly-edited content. While this format of course offers value in its own way, it tends to encourage more passive engagement and lead to parasocial relationships. Instead, Yubo focuses on creating an environment that allows for authentic interactions. Yubo users have the chance to talk with others in real time through Yubo’s signature livestreaming feature or share direct messages with others as well. 

Ultimately, Yubo saw the need to help create new connections, not just give them the tools to stay connected to people they already knew. While implementing filters might seem like a small step towards that goal or even an industry standard at this point, it is largely important to ensure every user has the tools they need to form new connections. Yubo is a stand alone app with industry leading safety technology and 60M users across the world. Yubo strives to be the leading live social discovery app for Gen Z and will continue to create genuine connections online.

We both have an amazing yellow logo and this seems to confuse some people. But Yubo is not affiliated with Snapchat and is its own live social discovery app for Gen Z. However, Yubo does have a partnership with Snapchat revolving around the Snapchat Camera Kit. The Yubo team is here to show you all its advantages!

Is Yubo connected to Snapchat?

That is up to you to decide! When you create a Yubo account, the app will ask if you would like to allow Yubo to use your location, you can then select “yes” or “no.” Sharing your location is not required to use Yubo, but it does slightly hinder the Yubo experience. Of course, you can change your location sharing settings at any time. Simply go to Settings > Safety and Privacy > Location > here you can turn on or off “use my location” and you can decide if you would like to hide your city as well. We give users full control over their privacy when it comes to the Yubo app and interacting with other users.

As a social discovery app, we want our community to make genuine connections. Yubo prioritizes showing you people and lives that are closer to your location, if you choose to share it. Don’t worry, this does not mean you are always going to be swiping on your neighbors. It simply means you will see lives and people closer to you first. For example, if you live in New York, you will see New York-based lives before you see Chicago-based lives. But, we also understand the fun in meeting new people from completely different backgrounds, which is why we don’t limit the reach of people you can meet on Yubo. We encourage making new friends, whether they be in the same city or another country.

You can control the regions you would like to see for both swipes and lives!

To change the location settings for Yubo’s swipe feature, head over to Settings, then Swipe Settings (it has its own tab). Here, you will see a location tab, tap it to change your swipe settings. You can choose between three main options: country of location first, all around the world, or country of location only. If you select the country of location first option, you will be able to select the maximum distance away of users to show you. It can be anywhere in the range of 18 miles to 65 miles. That’s about 19 kilometers to 104 kilometers for pretty much everyone outside of the United States. You even have the option to hide your profile from swipes, which means other people will not see your profile in the swipe section.

Once you are at the Live page, in the top left corner you will see a hamburger (the stack of lines, yes, it is actually called a hamburger). Tap it and you will see live filters. If you select distance, yubo will show you lives in order of distance, starting closer and getting farther. On this page, you will also see a location menu, where you can choose specific countries or select the worldwide option. Just like that, you can virtually travel around the world!

Changing your location on Yubo is fast and easy. All you need to do is go to Settings > Safety and Privacy > Location. Here you will see a tab that reads, “city.” Simply tap the city tab to refresh your location! You cannot manually enter a location because we believe in creating an authentic user experience and we do not want to give any power to potential trolls. 

Does Yubo use my location when the app is closed?

No, Yubo will never use your location unless you are actively using the app. We do not want to infringe on any of your privacy rights, nor your data. Additionally, we do not share any of your location data with anyone. It is kept safe and secure with us!

What if I don’t share my location with Yubo?

If you decided to disable location sharing on your Yubo account, it won’t hinder the Yubo experience at all! You will still be able to access lives from all around the world, meet people within similar interests in the swipe section of the app, and use almost every feature Yubo has to offer. The only features you will not have access to are the location-based features. These include filtering the swipe radius closer to your location and showing lives closer to your first. Instead, the lives and users will be tailored to you by the country you signed up with if you are even using those features in the app. You don’t need to share your location to enjoy Yubo. 

So, if you want to meet new people with similar interests near your or on the other side of the globe, hop on Yubo, the safest place for young minds to connect.

At Yubo, we place the safety of our users at the heart of everything we do. And this concern also includes protecting the privacy of Yubo users. Of all the information we share every day on the internet, location is a very valuable piece of data and sometimes it is best kept to oneself. It's always important to know who you're sharing your location with, so here's a quick guide to everything about location on Yubo.

Does Yubo Use Geolocalization?

Safety is at the core of everything Yubo does. No matter what new feature is implemented, Yubo will always prioritize the safety of its community above all else. Yubo aims to create a space where people from all over the world can interact authentically, whether it be in Lives or through swipes. Yubo does a lot to uphold its Community Guidelines through advanced AI, real-time human moderation, and extensive safety features. Even with all of this in place users still might run into something they find harmful or inappropriate. This is why Yubo made its report feature as quick and simple as possible.

Yes. To report a user on Yubo, simply tap on their profile. In the top right corner, you will see a shield with an exclamation mark icon, tap on that and select “Report”. Next, there will be a set of categories you can select to give better context to the situation. If you would like, you can even type an explanation as to why you are reporting the user and add photos or videos as well to further support your report and to help the Yubo team effectively investigate the issue.

To report a Live on Yubo, tap on the number of participants or swipe right on the screen to pull up the Live information. Next to the Live title, you will see a shield with an exclamation mark icon. Tap it and select a category to give moderators more context. Similar to reporting a user, you have the option to type an explanation and provide photos or videos to the report. It is that easy and takes well under a minute to report a user or livestream on Yubo.

What happens after you make a report on Yubo?

After you report someone or something on Yubo it is immediately sent to a real-time moderator, or otherwise known as a Yubo Safety Specialist. Our team of Safety Specialists work 24/7, 365 all around the world. When a report is submitted, members of our safety team will review the report and look over any additional information provided. Depending on the scenario, they might have enough information to make a decision just from the report – for example, if a user is reported for having uploaded inappropriate media to their profile. The moderator can simply confirm this, remove the media, and potentially even give the user a temporary ban from uploading media depending on the severity of the case. If a Live is being reported, oftentimes moderators will need to monitor the Live in order to make a fair and accurate judgment. This is why submitting additional information, such as photos or videos, helps moderators come to the right decision much quicker.

If you are reported on Yubo, this means that a moderator came to the understanding that you violated Yubo’s Community Guidelines. Depending on the violation, the results can range from a warning to a short temporary ban from uploading media or joining lives to a permanent ban from the Yubo app. If you were given a ban that you feel was unfair, you can contact our support team here.

If there is a user who is dampening your Yubo experience, you can also block them by tapping the shield icon with an exclamation mark, then selecting “Block”. When you block a user, they are NOT notified. They will also not be able to see your profile, contact you, watch your live, or see your comments in lives anymore. The same will happen for you as well. You can always unblock users at any time by going to your profile, tapping the settings icon, tapping “Safety and Privacy” then tapping “Blocked Users.”

Since Yubo is dedicated to creating a safe space for users to enjoy socializing, they also added a Muted Words feature, where you can decide what words you would not like to see. With this feature, you can choose to hide any words, phrases or emojis from across the app that you might find personally harmful or triggering. 

The user who has been reported will never know who reported them or for what reasons. All the information that goes into a report is strictly confidential in order to protect the users’ privacy. This is also essential to creating a safe space, as Yubo does not want users to be afraid to report bad behaviors. Naturally, moderators will see the report, the category selected, and any additional information the user decided to provide. However, this information is only used to give the moderator context on the situation and never goes any further. The moderator then assesses the situation and refers to our Community Guidelines and safety practices before deciding how to resolve the situation and what action to take.

While we know the idea of reporting can be overwhelming at first, at Yubo we try to make it as easy and straightforward as possible and can assure you that our safety team works hard to help our community feel safe. At Yubo, there is no place for harmful or hateful content or interactions in any form and we plan to keep it that way!

Safety is at the core of everything Yubo does. No matter what new feature is implemented, Yubo will always prioritize the safety of its community above all else. Yubo aims to create a space where people from all over the world can interact authentically, whether it be in Lives or through swipes. This is why Yubo made its report feature as quick and simple as possible.

Can you report someone on Yubo?

How Does Yubo's Reporting feature Work?

October 1st began World Bullying Prevention Month – A month dedicated to raising awareness and fighting against bullying, and instead promoting kindness, acceptance and inclusion. As of 2019, according to studies by Pacer, 20% of students have reported being bullied in school and 37% bullied online in their lifetime. Cyberbullying takes place online or digitally and can include crude comments, mean texts, and offensive posts about an individual or group. Effects of bullying, whether in real life or virtually through a screen, can have lifelong effects on its victims such as increased risks of mental health issues and suicide, poor physical health, and damaged self-esteem. With this new epidemic of cyberbullying, what can you do to help prevent bullying on social media for Bullying Prevention Month and beyond? Check out these incredible NGOs and their inspiring initiatives: 

PACER, a national bullying prevention center in the US, strives to promote kindness, acceptance, and inclusion in order to prevent bullying and create a better environment for students everywhere. Interested in learning more about what Bullying Prevention Month is? In collaboration with a student, PACER released a video of how to show your support this month and more information about Bullying Prevention Month (we highly recommend watching this or the other student-made videos proudly displayed on their site). Whether you’re a student, parent, or educator, check out PACER for a number of resources on how to prevent bullying, encourage those who’ve been bullied, and most importantly, strategies for spreading kindness. If you’d like to support PACER, consider taking the kindness pledge, joining the student video contest, or donating to help continue PACER’s free services. 

PACER's National Bullying Prevention Month

Stomp Out Bullying is a leading national nonprofit in the US dedicated to changing school culture for all students. With a motto of being “unapologetically kind” to combat bullying, Stomp Out Bullying is proving kindness is the greatest tool of all. Join them in stomping out bullying by wearing blue to show your support. Stomp Out Bullying also offers important facts to enlighten your world about bullying, a HelpChat crisis line for teens aged 13-24 to turn to, and resources for both educators and parents to advise them on if students are being bullied, or on how to help spread kindness. To support Stomp Out Bullying, consider donating, getting involved, creating a partnership, participating, becoming a youth leader, or purchasing Stomp Out Bullying’s merch. 

Kids Help Phone is Canada’s primary online mental health service with free support to young people open every hour of every day. Their online site offers interactive activities focused on wellness, mental health tips and information, and forums. In 2021, Kids Help Phone reported that they had Canadian youth reach out to them 4.6 million times and that they held 172,000+ counseling and live chat sessions, 242,000+ text sessions, and 100,000+ peer-to-peer community sessions. To support Kids Help Phone, please consider donating, volunteering, fundraising, or even just sharing your own story with Kids Help Phone. 

The Diana Award was founded based on Princess Diana’s belief that young people have the power to change the world and prove so by helping youth unlock their potential, creating opportunities for young people, and inspiring action in them. The Diana Award offers an anti-bullying program across the UK to help youth become student ambassadors to tackle bullying. Their new initiative, #FreeTheShoulders aims to bring people together around the world together to fight all forms of bullying. Join the fight or consider donating, partnering with The Diana Award, joining their programs, hosting a fundraising livestream, or showing your support by wearing the merch.  

Reach Out offers a safe online space for youth to connect with others, improve their mental health, and feel like they’re not alone in what they’re facing. With an online anonymous chat feature, teens can reach out for advice and help, parents can seek guidance on how to support their children, and schools can learn what to offer to improve their students' and staff's wellbeing. Reach Out also offers an online forum community, filled with positivity, for teens and others to reference when needed. If you want to support Reach Out, you can volunteer, donate, fundraise, or spread awareness.

eEnfance Association fights cyberbullying in France by offering French youth, parents, and educators interventions and training on the responsible use of the internet as well as the risks involved. Victims of cyberbullying of any kind can anonymously contact 3018 at any time, any day to get support and advice. Support eEnfance by donating, volunteering, or sponsoring eEnfance. 

How Does The Yubo App Fight Against Bullying?

At Yubo, safety is at the core of every decision we take and we want to ensure users feel like they’re a part of a positive online community. While Yubo has an extensive moderation team and vast safety processes in place, we’ve also added features to give the users control of what they want to see. With our muted words feature, users can choose the words they do not want to see or that they find personally harmful or triggering, and Yubo will never show those words to them in live streams or messaging. Users are also able to block other users they do not want to interact with and easily report anyone they find to be disrespectful. At Yubo, we have strict Community Guidelines in place that prohibit bullying, hate speech, violence, and much more. Any time a user reports a violation of these guidelines, we investigate and take appropriate action. We are always looking for new ways to make Yubo as safe a place as possible and are dedicated to fighting against the harms of online bullying through innovative safety features, user education, and partnerships with important charities and NGOs. 

October 1st began World Bullying Prevention Month – A month dedicated to raising awareness and fighting against bullying, and instead promoting kindness, acceptance and inclusion. As of 2019, according to studies by Pacer, 20% of students have reported being bullied in school and 37% bullied online in their lifetime. Effects of bullying, whether in real life or virtually through a screen, can have lifelong effects on its victims such as increased risks of mental health issues and suicide, poor physical health, and damaged self-esteem. Check out these incredible NGOs and their inspiring initiatives.

How You Can Help Prevent Bullying on Social Media?

Yubo is a live social discovery app that is free to download from the App Store and Google Play. More than 60 million young people use our platform every day to connect and engage with others from all over the world. The app is designed specifically to help young people today expand their social circles online, similar to how they would in real life. Unlike most other social media platforms, Yubo does not use any approval metrics such as likes or followers, which allows our users to express themselves authentically and make genuine friendships without the pressures of performance. 

There are 2 main ways to make friends on Yubo – through livestreams and through swipes. Swiping has become natural for Gen Z as a simple and straightforward way to demonstrate interest in connecting. While swiping is used differently across every type of app you can think of, for Yubo specifically it is focused on finding potential friends – this can be especially helpful when finding others who share similar interests or personalities. On their profiles, Yubo users can add tags, emojis and media that showcase who they are and what they like or dislike. You swipe right on friends you’d like to talk to, and if the other person does the same, you’re all set to start a conversation and strike up a friendship. 

The second way of finding friends is through our livestreaming feature. Users can explore the Live feed page to find live streams they are interested in based on topic, language or title. Once a user finds a livestream they’d like to join, they can jump right in and begin watching. Once they are in a livestream as a watcher, they can also request to join as a streamer. Every user also has the ability to start their very own livestream for others to join. You can have an unlimited number of viewers and a maximum of 10 streamers per livestream. Most of our users actually prefer staying in small circles with friends they feel comfortable with in our virtual community. 

As our concept is to meet people worldwide, you might wonder if our platform discloses users’ location on the app. When downloading the app, Yubo gives each user the choice to share their location or not. Users can also choose to only share their country or city, which allows the app to match them with friends that speak the same language. At any point, this option is easily changeable in your profile, you can hide/show your location at any time.

It is also important to note that the location options are disabled for all users under the age of 18  and their location information is hidden on the app by default. 

How does Yubo make sure its users always speak to real people?

Yubo’s main focus has always been safety, which is why we never stop innovating to create new safety features or iterating on those we have already implemented over the years across the app. We recently released an advanced, platform-wide age-verification process in partnership with Yoti that age-verifies users on Yubo. Following a successful beta test among our youngest users (13 to 14 years old), we released it to all our users. Today, we’re proud to say that 100% of our users are verified, which we accomplished 3 months ahead of schedule. 

This new system adds an extra layer of security and protection during user sign-up and will reduce the number of bots, fake profiles and bad actors on the platform. It will also help to ensure that users are the age they say, and assist Yubo in age-gating to limit interaction between teens and adults on the platform. 

Yubo 100% Age Verification

How does Yubo protect young users from abuse and regulate bad behaviors?

Yubo has strict Community Guidelines in place in order to protect, educate and support members of our growing community through innovative technology, a 24/7 team of Safety Specialists, and real-time moderation and intervention. We also have an independent Safety Board made of industry experts and work with NGOs, charities, law enforcement authorities and other organizations on digital safety issues.

Every new user must accept these Yubo’s guidelines when they sign up for the app. Our Community Guidelines prohibit nudity (and partial nudity including underwear), violence, drugs, hate speech, fake profiles, CSAM, bullying and more. When someone violates these guidelines, we investigate and take the appropriate action – this might include sending a warning, filtering and removing content, suspending a user or issuing permanent bans at the device level. We encourage our users to report any concerns to us and our own algorithms also generate reports when they detect a possible breach of our guidelines so we can take appropriate action.

Our Community Guidelines apply to all our users, no matter where they are in the world, and apply to content (including text, images, video live streaming and audio) on their profiles, live-streaming and chatting on Yubo. Because everything change so quickly in the digital world, these guidelines are a living document that we update regularly.

If you would like to find out more about our commitment to user safety and the tools we have in place, please visit our Safety Hub. You can also find details of the actions taken by our Safety team in our Transparency Report.

Social networks are everywhere, especially among young people. It can be very scary for parents to have to deal with this unknown world. At Yubo, we believe it is essential to have an open dialogue with parents and educators to best protect young users. Here is all the information parents need to know about Yubo and how it works.

What do parents need to know about Yubo?

In October, Yubo wears pink to raise awareness about breast cancer impact and prevention. 

In the United States, on average, 1 in 8 women will get breast cancer in their lifetime. In France, where Yubo was founded, 1 in 8 women will get breast cancer in their lifetime. Breast cancer does not choose who to affect and no matter who or where you are, someone in your life or even yourself is at risk. That is why Yubo is joining Pink October alongside partnership with the renowned research center Marie Curie Institute, Medisur laboratory, Cancer@Work, and TrainMe to help raise awareness among our employees, their friends, and their families and to teach the importance of preventative screening and prioritizing their health.

Yubo’s Pink October program focuses on bettering our team and putting their health first, through learning, experience sharing and wellness teaching. 

Yubo employees will be attending seminars with the Marie Curie Institute, a leader in breast cancer treatment, where we will be listening and talking to expert spokespersons on good practices for personal health and the different forms of breast cancer. Through participating in the Pink October program, Yubo will also be financially supporting the Marie Curie Institute with a donation toward its incredible life-saving research. 

A conference led by Medisur will inform Yubo team members about what the breast cancer screening process accounts for, and the life-saving importance of self-examination. Medisur works with companies and organizations to put their employees and members health first. They will also hear testimonials from Natahlie Presson, Director of Cancer@Work, and its members Louise Massing and Franck Martinez. 20-30% of women who are diagnosed with breast cancer, will lose their jobs, taking away their financial security and their health insurance. Cancer@Work aids breast cancer warriors and survivors in finding jobs by recognizing their strengths, rather than focusing on the “blank” periods on their resumes. 

Yubo team will also be participating in classes with TrainMe to help all employees focus on their mental and physical well-being. Not only is preventative screening necessary to protect your health, but so is nurturing your body and your mind. 

The Yubo App is adding a brand new filter for Pink October. The new filter, featuring pink hair pom poms, a pink tint over the whole video, a small pink heart on the user’s nose, and of course, a ribbon for breast cancer awareness on the screen, will be available to all users. We at Yubo not only want to show our support, but we want to assist our users with raising awareness and vocalizing their own support through the use of this filter. 

Our team is showing our users how we support Pink October through our social media channels too. We’ll be posting our team wearing pink and encouraging users to help spread awareness about breast cancer and breast cancer prevention. 

Pink October is coined worldwide to describe October as a month to raise awareness about breast cancer. Pink October mainly focuses on education about breast cancer, early detection and possible symptoms, but it also is used as a month to raise money towards research, treatments, education and emotional support for those diagnosed or potential patients. If you’re looking to get involved with Pink October, check out the activities calendar offered by the National Breast Cancer Foundation. . 

When did Pink October start and when did the pink ribbon begin to represent breast cancer?

National Breast Cancer Awareness Month was founded in 1985 by the American Cancer Society and a pharmaceutical division to promote breast cancer prevention. In 1991, the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation handed out pink ribbons rather than the traditional pink visor to breast cancer survivors participating in a charity run.

Though the pink ribbon didn’t become synchronous with breast cancer that year, it only took one more year for the symbol to spread nationally. In 1993, is when the Senior Corporate Vice President of the Estee Lauder Companies (yes the cosmetics company), Evelyn Lauder, made a deal with the editor-in-chief of Self magazine, to promote the pink ribbon at their cosmetic counters across the country. Read more about the evolution and the history of the pink ribbon here. 

Is there a specific day to wear pink in October?

There is no specific day to wear pink in October or any part of the year as breast cancer doesn’t only affect its victims at select times. But, there are organized activities, fundraisers, runs, and more to support Pink October and breast cancer awareness in general, that you may want to sport pink for. For example, on the official Real Kids Wear Pink Day, students all across the nation are encouraged to wear pink to raise awareness in their communities and help fight against breast cancer. Real Kids Wear Pink was founded by an eleven year old girl in New York, who believed that when kids come together, great things can happen. 

The Marie Curie Institute / Institut Curie

The Marie Curie Institute, formed in 1970 thanks to the work done by Marie Curie and her colleagues on radioactivity, is an internationally-renowned research center with over 3,300 researchers, physicians and caregivers all working together for the Institute’s main missions: treatment, research and teaching. Marie Curie, a revolutionary physicist and chemist, is the only woman to have won two Nobel Prizes. 

In the United States, on average, 1 in 8 women will get breast cancer in their lifetime. That is why Yubo is joining Pink October alongside partnership with the renowned research center Marie Curie Institute, Medisur laboratory, Cancer@Work, and TrainMe to help raise awareness among our employees, their friends, and their families and to teach the importance of preventative screening and prioritizing their health.

Yubo Joins Pink October

What is Yubo?

Yubo, a live social discovery app, has grown quickly across the globe. But, why is that? What is this yellow app and more importantly, what is the purpose of Yubo?

Yubo, is an app created to make it easy for people to expand their social circles, make friends and socialize online with people from around the world. Founded in 2015, Yubo was created with one purpose in mind: to find friends. Eventually, we expanded into our own standalone app, one that allows our users to meet unique personalities from all over the world in a safe virtual environment. 

While the possibilities to form friendships on Yubo are endless, there are two core aspects of Yubo that help you find and create long lasting friendships: the livestreams and the swipes. 

You’re likely already aware of how swiping works, since it’s used across many different types of apps you may have already encountered. But in case you’re not, here’s exactly how it works on Yubo: a profile appears on your screen with a personalized bio, as many pictures and videos as a user wishes to add, emojis to showcase the person’s personality, tags that show specific interests, and of course, their display name. You’ll check out the profile and if you decide you’d like to add them as a friend or start a conversation, you’ll swipe right. If you don’t think your personalities will match well, then you swipe left. It’s as simple as that.

If you match, you can begin messaging each other, which as we know, can sometimes be the hardest part of making new friends. Getting those awkward icebreakers and how are you? is out of the way. Yubo will suggest a few options of openings for you, just simple ones, but it’s an easy click to get the conversation started. After that, it’s all up to you. Be sure to check out their profile to find out more about their interests to make for more exciting conversation.

What about if you’re looking for someone to discuss the latest episode of your favorite anime show with? Simply, add that interest tag to your profile and then search for others with that same tag! We refer to that as “add by tags” – it’s one of our users’ favorite systems for finding friends and makes starting conversations easy. But, if messaging one-on-one isn’t your thing, then jump into one of our thousands of livestreams!

In Yubo lives, you have the world to discover right at your fingertips. Any country, any language, any interest, just hop into a Yubo Live and start chatting. Lives range from one person to ten people streaming and can have an unlimited number of viewers. If you’re more comfortable talking with one person or small groups, there’s lives for that. If you’d rather be part of a large crowd watching different people display their talents, share hilarious stories or talk about their day, there’s lives for that. Yubo is all about what is comfortable to you, and what interests you. There is something for everyone. 

Huge movie buff? Join a Youtube watchparty on Yubo! Magician in training? Hop into a talent Live and practice your profession. Need to focus on homework? Start your own Live and put up a sign telling others to study with you! Wanting to discuss politics, but none of your IRL friends are interested? Join a debate Live (just make sure to keep it respectful)! 

We also offer a variety of in-app games while livestreaming such as would you rather, drawing quizzes, and more! They’re easy to do and a great way to introduce yourself to others, or to spend time playing with friends! And, even better, on our live streams we offer a wide selection of filters for you to use while on camera if you so chose. 

Most importantly, safety is at the core of every decision made at Yubo. We don’t collect your private information to use for targeted advertisements. All we ask is for a photo and birthdate for verification purposes with our new AI verification process. It’s easy and helps to ensure everyone you’re talking to on Yubo is the real deal. 

More than that, we have a vast moderation team and processes in place to keep your interactions on the app positive. But, you have control too. In the “muted words” section of your profile add words you’d rather not see in live or in your messages. And, if you come across a user not respecting the community guidelines or your own boundaries, you’re able to report them and our safety team will investigate it further and take appropriate action if necessary. 

What is Yubo used for?

When you think of the word “bots” you are probably imagining some kind of malicious code created solely to send you annoying spam messages or to create fake engagement on social media. While this is true some of the time, it is not always the case. Bots can actually be extremely helpful and even serve a good purpose.

An online bot is simply a software that is coded to run tasks online. They are not physical robots sitting behind computers (maybe in the future though). Even though little internet software robots seem like no big deal, they can be quite powerful depending on how they are programmed and what their purpose is.

Let’s start with the bad bots. Have you ever received a random message, email, or even phone call that tries to get some information out of you? Or sometimes just says “Hello” and then follows up with a completely out of context message? Those are likely bots. But the bots themselves are not the bad guys, it is their creator and their poor intent that is malicious. Some bots are designed to create fake social media accounts to endorse certain pages or even make negative comments. Bots can even be programmed to go as far as share fake news or have fake conversations with real people, hoping to get personal information from them. Depending on the capabilities of the programmer, believe it or not, it can even go much further than this.

Don’t worry, not every profile you interact with online is run by a bot and not every post with a few thousand engagements is fake either – especially on Yubo. In fact, on Yubo, you have an added layer of protection against bots, fake profiles and people with bad intentions thanks to the latest Age Verification System put in place making Yubo a 100% user verified platform. A general rule of thumb to stay safe online is to NEVER, ever share your personal information with strangers. If a company or website requires personal information, it will always be done through their secure servers, but you cannot trust another person you don’t know very well with the same information. Another quick tip to avoid interacting with bots is: If it’s too good to be true, it probably is. The lottery won’t send you a direct message asking for your routing number to send the money, and… you probably didn’t win the lottery (yet).

Not every bot is evil. In fact, bots can be extremely helpful as they are excellent at collecting and compiling public data. Data scientists use bots all the time to collect important insights on our world. You can even easily access bot data with Google Trends, a free database of the most searched terms on Google. That’s pretty cool.

Now for the good bots. Bots are commonly used by tech companies to help with or carry out moderation to make the internet a better place. Yubo uses bots in combination with advanced AI algorithms and a team of around the clock real-time moderators to create as safe and positive a virtual environment as possible. By teaming up with bots, Yubo’s moderation team can ensure timely, effective and fair moderation is done. 

You might be wondering how Yubo’s real-time moderation works?

We can’t give away all of our secrets, but we can share some insight on how Yubo utilizes its bots for moderation purposes. Yubo created a system of bots that process Livestreams, content users share, and chats. 

For Livestreams, our bots analyze the Livestream video frame by frame to search for content that violates Yubo’s community guidelines. If the bots pick up on an inappropriate image, they will send that instance to one of Yubo’s real-time moderators, who are real people (not robots). Those moderators then go through each incident and take appropriate action.

Does Yubo use bots to moderate other content than livestreams? 

When it comes to the content users share, the bots are a bit more proactive. They will automatically scan the photo or video for content that breaches the community guidelines before the user is able to send it.

Yubo understands that messaging is a large part of socializing online, but believes that hate has no place on the app. This is why it also scans for harmful and inappropriate text. Separately, you can use Yubo’s Muted Words feature to hide certain words or phrases from your screen that you find personally triggering. Bot power feels good doesn’t it?

Bot moderation goes a bit further here as well. The bots also process text for personal information before the user is able to send it. If they find any, the use will receive a pop-up alert letting them know that they are about to share personal information with another person. If the user wishes to proceed, they can click through the pop up. It never hurts to think twice about sharing private information.

Again, safety is at the core of everything we do at Yubo. That is why we use the amazing power of bots, don’t worry only the good kind, with the best intentions in mind.

When you think of the word “bots” you are probably imagining some kind of malicious code created solely to send you annoying spam messages or to create fake engagement on social media. While this is true some of the time, it is not always the case. the Yubo team explains how Bots can actually be extremely helpful and even serve a good purpose. Come and discover the mystery of bots, even if it's not on Yubo that you'll meet many them.

Not all Bots are Bad Bots

Pretending to be someone else on the internet by creating fake profiles, also known as catfishing, is a very common practice especially on social media. It’s unfortunately nothing new. In fact, that term was made popular by the American TV Show “Catfish”, which began airing back in 2012. The show’s premise is to help guests determine if the person they’ve been talking to online is actually the real person behind the account. That type of behavior is also very commonly linked to scams, hence why it has become more and more important to be able to quickly detect those false identities to help you stay safe.

Why is it important to know how to spot fake profiles?

Knowing who you’re talking to before sharing anything about yourself, such as your daily life, private or personal information, or your deepest secrets must become a priority when surfing the internet or connecting online. For people who have the wrong intentions, impersonating someone is fairly easy to do these days – but don’t worry, we have your back. Signs of a potential fake account can be simple to identify when you know what to look for. 

Making up an entire fake person’s life from scratch takes a lot of creativity and work… As a result, asking questions to a catfish might help you spot gaps in their story (whether it’s about their family, friends, what they did at school, where they’re from, what their interests are, what they liked as a kid and so on). Making a conversation flow is the basis of building friendships online, especially when you find someone with similar interests, so keep doing this as it will help you spot potential inconsistencies.

Of course, the goal is not to be overly suspicious about everyone you might interact with, you can’t constantly assume the worst of people, but being careful doesn’t cost you anything and can help to keep you safe – which is the most important. All it takes is a little bit of caution when you are still building trust.

What’s the best way to determine if an account is fake or not on social media?

The best way is trusting apps that guarantee 100% age verification for all its users. At Yubo, we believe it’s key to stay safe online and to make sure you’re making true friends.

Yubo has recently become the first major social media platform to implement comprehensive age-verification technology, which is definitely a milestone we’ve worked hard to achieve in an ongoing effort to provide our users with as much online safety as possible. 

Yubo's New Verification

In partnership with leading digital identity provider Yoti, Yubo first introduced this brand-new age-verification system in May 2022 for users ages 13 and 14 through beta testing, with the goal of scaling verification across all ages by year-end.

The main reason why we started introducing it for our youngest users is that we consider them our most vulnerable audience. Young people often feel the need to fit in and make new friends quickly, plus their thinking skills are still growing significantly and they might overlook warning signs more than other users.

This trial was a great success, which is why the integration was accelerated. In only 3 months, we reached the milestone of 100% of our iOS users being verified. Fewer than 10% of Yubo users today access the platform via Android devices and Yubo’s age-verification software will be deployed fully to Android in the coming weeks. 

Yubo is aiming for greater efficiency to ensure users interact within age-appropriate groups, while still making our user experience smooth and our verification process accessible and easy to go through. This implementation is also extremely discouraging for catfishes or people with bad intentions – whether we’re talking about humans or bots – from accessing Yubo.

How does Yubo’s new age-verification tool work? 

Yubo prompts new users signing up for an account, or existing users who are not yet verified, to enter their age and take a real-time photo of their face – otherwise known as, you guessed it, a selfie. 

Yoti’s technology has been trained to estimate age by looking at facial features and interpreting them as pixels. It then can match those pixels to other sets of pixels to determine an estimated age. To protect user data and privacy, the system has no way of retroactively linking a name or an identity to an image provided. If the age provided and the age estimated based on the photo do not match, additional identification steps are required before the user can access Yubo. Yoti’s technology is crazy precise, as it is able to verify that a user is above or below a given age threshold consistently across all ages, genders, and skin tones. 

What other tips can be useful to detect fake profiles? 

Someone that only wants to exchange via DMs – it’s fishy if you consistently refuse to show your real face on camera, even for a few seconds

No new pictures – usually catfishes only have access to a few pictures of the person they’re trying to impersonate, which mean that they will quickly run out of selfies to share and you won’t see any updates

Using photos of a celebrity, influencer, model or other famous or recognizable person 

Very few friends count – your friends are interested in what you share, and always comment or like your pics or stories. If someone doesn’t have any interaction on their profiles, that might be a red flag

Pretending to be someone else on the internet by creating fake profiles, also known as catfishing, is a very common practice especially on social media. It’s unfortunately nothing new. The Yubo team has recently seen the American TV Show “Catfish”, which made the term Catfish popular. The show’s premise is to help guests determine if the person they’ve been talking to online is actually the real person behind the account. That type of behavior is also very commonly linked to scams, hence why it has become more and more important to be able to quickly detect those false identities to help you stay safe. And the new age verification system of Yubo is a sure way to avoid this kind of profile. But here are some tips from the Yubo team to unmask these fake profiles when you are online on other platforms.

How Yubo keeps fake profiles away from its platform?

Yubo, a social discovery platform, launched in 2015 is quickly growing and claiming its place as one of the top social apps for Gen Z. On the platform, users ranging from 13-25 can make new friends by finding users of similar interests and can then message or live stream with them, creating long-lasting friendships in this digital age.

But, how can Yubo ensure its users know who they’re talking to is who they say they are, and how can Yubo promise a safe environment online? Yubo’s newest age-verification system can offer teens, and their parents, peace of mind that online friendships have never been safer.

Yubo has become an industry leader in online safety. 

Not only has Yubo enforced an age verification system on the app for years, but now it will be the first major social media app to push age verification across the entirety of the platform. 

On the Yubo App, verifying your age has never been easier or safer. All a user has to do is take a real-time selfie through the app (to ensure it truly is the user) and then the liveness algorithm will take a quick video of the user. The algorithm can even detect whether it is looking at a real human or a static image. Once it has secured an image, the Yoti algorithm will give an estimate of the age and see if it matches the age it claimed to be. Any discrepancies and the user will be asked to provide additional identification further proving their age. With their age selected, they will then be placed in a matching age range on the Yubo App, and can safely message others in that age range without question of who they are. On Yubo, you won’t have to worry and can instead put that focus and energy into making new friends. It’s a win-win for everyone. 

This new algorithm benefits all Yubo users, and not just because Yubo is enforcing 100% verification. Now, minors, who may not have had IDs, can verify themselves and show the digital world of Yubo that they are who they say they are. So, the minors who weren’t able to verify in the past can now enjoy that bright yellow check mark beside their username. Who said aesthetics and safety couldn’t go together?

But, does this age-verification system really work? 

Yes, and it’s constantly improving. Today, the Yoti algorithm is 98.9 percent accurate in determining if users are above or below the age threshold. With over 550 million age evaluations (and growing) in its database, Yoti is capable of correctly estimating 6-to12-year-old users within a 1.3-year margin and 13-to18-year-old users within a 1.5-year margin regardless of their gender and skin tones. Additionally, Yoti’s liveness detection algorithm has been awarded iBeta certification, which is the industry standard for these practices. While some social media apps like Instagram, are jumping to utilize this technology, Yubo still remains the only platform to ask for the entirety of its user base to verify themselves. 

If you’re looking for a safe online space where young minds can express themselves, head to Yubo. With 60 million users across 40 countries accumulated since 2015, Yubo is a fast-growing Gen Z-focused app and you never have to worry about being bored. Yubo offers messaging, live streaming, interest-based profile tags, and of course, online games to play with friends or to be used as icebreakers. All of the above plus an emphasis on safety, what else could you ask for?

Yubo, a social discovery platform, launched in 2015 is quickly growing and claiming its place as one of the top social apps for Gen Z. On the platform, users ranging from 13-25 can make new friends by finding users of similar interests and can then message or live stream with them, creating long-lasting friendships in this digital age.
But, how can Yubo ensure its users know who they’re talking to is who they say they are, and how can Yubo promise a safe environment online? Yubo’s newest age-verification system can offer teens, and their parents, peace of mind that online friendships have never been safer.

The Benefits of Yubo's Advanced Verification System

In May 2022, Yubo announced it was introducing an age verification system developed in partnership with digital identity provider, Yoti. The new software allows Yubo to further strengthen safety measures and allows Yubo users to be confident that they’re interacting with others of a similar age group. Yubo first launched the technology in beta for users ages 13 and 14, with the goal of scaling the technology across its entire user base by the end of the year - a first for a social network of Yubo’s size! 

🎉 Today, we are proud to announce that we are one step closer to becoming the first social media platform to age-verify 100% of our users, with all Apple users successfully verified three months ahead of schedule. 🎉

This initiative is part of Yubo's commitment to the safety of its users. In an ever-changing digital world, our team continues to innovate and find new solutions so that we can provide our users with the safest possible experience on Yubo. Age and identity verification issues are amongst the greatest challenges facing the entire industry today, and our new age verification system puts us one step closer to mitigating the issues associated. 

How does the age verification system work?

The age verification system asks all new users joining Yubo, and all users already registered across Yubo who have not been verified yet, to verify their identity using Yoti’s age-estimation technology. To do so, each user is prompted to take a real-time photo of their face, which Yoti’s technology uses to estimate their age and compare it against the date of birth provided at sign-up. 

Within a few seconds, users are told if the age verification was successful and if so, they can immediately begin socialising on Yubo. 

This system is completely privacy-friendly and only requires additional identification steps if the user’s age doesn’t match the age listed at sign-up. 

In order to use Yubo, all of our users must now go through our new age verification system. It allows us to enhance the accuracy of age-gating and prevent users who may misrepresent their age with ill intent from joining our platform. 

At Yubo, our foremost priority is to create a safe environment for our users and to empower them to interact safely online and with others across the world. To do this, we continuously look for new ways to protect our users. The development of this age verification tool not only addresses one of the largest challenges in online safety today but provides another level of protection to our young users. 

We want all our users to feel safe and be authentic on Yubo. If a user refuses to verify their age, they will not be able to enter the app and will be asked to verify their age every time they attempt to log in. 

Yubo's Take

Here for all of it.