Report shows efficacy of platform wide age-verification in reduction of inappropriate content, decreased need for Safety Specialist intervention.

PARIS, FRANCE – MARCH 21, 2023 – Yubo, the live social discovery app for Gen Z, has released its latest transparency report, providing key insights to government leaders, NGO partners, and other stakeholders on the platform’s progress and success mitigating online safety risks with technical tools and policies.

The H2 2022 Yubo Transparency Report tracks data and activity on the platform between July 2022 and December 2022, a period that followed a series of major safety feature and policy implementations, including:

Platform wide age-verification requirements (an industry-first among major social companies)

Real-time moderation of audio in livestreams (also an industry-first)

Enhanced capabilities for user-reporting of content on Yubo

This latest report also represents Yubo’s step toward publishing metrics on a twice-yearly basis, following an annual cadence, to provide data to interested parties more frequently and provide actionable insights to industry partners more readily. 

Yubo’s first transparency report was published in 2022 to reflect findings from the previous year (2021). Each report is compiled and reviewed by the Yubo Safety Advisory Board, which includes experts from leading organizations dedicated to enhancing online safety, such as the National Centers for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), Thorn and The Diana Award.

Through the second half of 2022, there was a decrease in the number of reports flagged by Yubo's proactive detection systems after streamlining the way reports were categorized. This allowed Yubo's safety team to spend more time focusing on reviewing reports and taking efficient action. As a result of the mandatory age verification system implemented in September 2022, there was also a notable increase in the number of permanent account suspensions.

“In 2022, Yubo developed and rolled out more safety features, updates, and policies, than in any other year prior. We are looking forward to identifying new metrics and tracking progress on a year-over-year basis to understand how we can continue to improve our safety framework to ensure we can stay true to our commitment to being a leader in online safety,” said Yubo CEO Sacha Lazimi. “This new bi-annual cadence of reporting, will give us more agility in informed decision-making during what we feel is a critical period for online safety.”

“We are grateful for Yubo’s proactive and transparent approach to keeping minors safe, including their recent efforts to age-verify 100 percent of all users,” said John Shehan, Senior Vice President of NCMEC’s Exploited Children Division & International Engagement. “Among the many electronic service providers NCMEC works with, Yubo is an industry leader and one who consistently invests in their technology and people, all in an effort to protect minors who use their platform.”

Yubo, the live social discovery app for Gen Z, has released its latest transparency report, providing key insights to government leaders, NGO partners, and other stakeholders on the platform’s progress and success mitigating online safety risks with technical tools and policies.

Yubo publishes H2 2022 Transparency Report with findings from safety updates, policy overhauls

NEW YORK – FEB. 27, 2023 – Yubo, the live social discovery app for Gen Z, has partnered with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) to support the organization in its launch of Take It Down, a free online service to help stop child sexual exploitation and help minors remove their nudes from the internet.

Since 2018, Yubo has worked closely alongside NCMEC, the leading nonprofit dedicated to finding missing children, reducing child sexual exploitation, in an ongoing partnership to eradicate online child exploitation. With the launch of Take It Down, Yubo continues its collaboration with NCMEC to block the non-consensual use of sexually exploitative photos and videos depicting anyone under the age of 18. The service will complement  the wide range of advanced detection tools Yubo already has in place to prevent, remove, and report inappropriate imagery that is shared on the app, and help to further enhance the protection of its users.

NCMEC’s Take It Down service works by assigning a unique hash value to each nude, partially nude, or sexually explicit image or video submitted on the site. A hash value works like a digital fingerprint and allows participating online platforms to identify and block imagery that has the same hash, while maintaining privacy and anonymity. In fact, the entire process of submitting a report on Take It Down happens without the image or video being reported ever leaving the person’s device or anyone else viewing it.  

Through this partnership with NCMEC, Yubo will scan its platform to help remove, and, when necessary, report any images or videos found on Yubo that have been submitted via the service.

To help prevent victimization through the spread or use of explicit content: 

A minor or adult selects a sexually explicit or inappropriate image or video from their device taken before they were 18 that they want hashed and removed, and submits it to NCMEC directly through the Take It Down service.

Each image or video is automatically hashed into a unique digital fingerprint, which can be used to identify exact copies of that image or video. 

Images and videos remain on the minor’s device and are never actually uploaded to or seen by NCMEC or its Take It Down service.

The hash is added to a recently developed hash-sharing list maintained by NCMEC and is shared with participating platforms, such as Yubo, which have executed an agreement to receive these hashes submitted by minors.

Platforms may voluntarily scan their services for the hashes and may remove or report any detected hash matches to reduce the circulation of sexually explicit or exploitative content depicting minors.

“Take It Down provides young people with a meaningful tool to better control how and where their images are used online, and its launch represents a key step in the mission to eradicate CSAM online,” said Yubo co-founder and CEO Sacha Lazimi. “Take It Down serves as an added layer of safety and protection for the teens and young adults socializing on Yubo. We are proud to be a partner to NCMEC in the launch of this service and to support innovation that effectively fights the non-consensual spread of content while preserving our users’ privacy.”

Yubo & NCMEC - a new reporting flow

To further support the rollout of Take It Down, Yubo has added a new option to the app’s reporting flow to allow users to report any content circulating online of them that they deem inappropriate. If users select this option in Yubo’s in-app reporting tool, they will be directed to visit the NCMEC Take It Down site, where they can submit an anonymous report of the content they want removed.

Take It Down is currently available globally in English and Spanish. The service will continue to evolve with new capabilities, such as new languages and hash value matching of live photos or Boomerang videos, which it currently does not cover. 

The service is modeled after the United Kingdom’s StopNCII.org, which helps adults victimized by “revenge porn” and similar acts stop the circulation of sensitive media or content of them online. 

Yubo, the live social discovery app for Gen Z, has partnered with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) to support the organization in its launch of Take It Down, a free online service to help stop child sexual exploitation and help minors remove their nudes from the internet.

Yubo joins forces with NCMEC to combat the spread of sexually inappropriate photos and videos of minors online

Cyberbullying has been on the rise among young people and has reportedly risen by 50% over the course of the lockdowns, increasing the conversations around the measures that can be taken to protect kids and teens online.

Think Before You Send

Yubo’s New Age Verification Feature Helps Keep You Safe

This Anti-Bullying Week (15th -21st November) Yubo is educating its user base on the impacts of bullying by working alongside UK Charity The Diana Award with the aim to make the Yubo community aware of the actions they should do when you have been bullied, through a campaign directly on the App and an educational quiz. It’s now urging other social media platforms to proactively take measures to protect younger online users as well as educate teens on how to act kindly online in order to protect them in the long term. 

Yubo Launches Personalised Moderation Feature

Earlier this year, Yubo took action against online bullying and harmful content with the introduction of its new ‘Muted Words’ feature, which enables its users to block specific words and phrases that they find personally triggering from appearing to them on the app.

The Muted Words feature allows users to specify a number of words and abbreviations that they find offensive, harmful and triggering to them that they no longer wish to see in comments or content on the app. Users will also be able to choose from whom to mute the words - for example, they can block from all users or just those that aren’t on their friends' list. Yubo will then automatically hide comments containing these words from the user's view.

Social justice and Social Media

Sacha Lazimi, CEO and co-founder of Yubo says, “Social media plays a huge role in Gen Z’s lives - they are the very first digital natives, to them there is no difference between socialising online or offline. As they spend more time online, it is our job as social media organisations to protect them against online bullying and inappropriate behaviour. 

Yubo Introduces Features to Unite Gen Z by Interests

Now more than ever, this generation needs a space to safely socialise with like-minded people and experience social interaction online. However, it is our responsibility as a business to ensure that they are protected and educated on how to behave responsibly online, not just on Yubo, but on any social media or online forum. That is why we have introduced these new features and will continue to proactively work with our safety and moderation experts to ensure Yubo is a safe space to make new and meaningful connections.” 

This Anti-Bullying Week (15th -21st November) Yubo is educating its user base on the impacts of bullying by working alongside UK Charity The Diana Award with the aim to make the Yubo community aware of the actions they should do when you have been bullied, through a campaign directly on the App and an educational quiz.

Yubo collaborates with the Diana Awards

1 minutes read

- Written by Yubo Team

You may also like:

Yubo publishes H2 2022 Transparency Report with findings from safety update...