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

Music? TV? Gaming? Yubo, the leading platform for Gen Z to socialise online, has made it even easier for users to connect and make friends based on their interests with its new in-app onboarding interface and updates to its tags feature. 

Now users can add tags to their profiles when they create their account to show their new friends the latest topics that they’re keen to chat about. By including the feature in the account creation flow, it’s now easier for Gen Z to find the right tags to add to their profile showing their love for food, tv, music, gaming and much more. 

It will also be possible to add friends by tags too! If a user comes across a profile with a tag that interests them, they can click on it to find other users who share that interest. Users' top tags will appear directly in their "friends" tab. So everyone can create communities of friends sharing the same interests. 

Over six million Yubo users worldwide are already using the tag feature to make new meaningful connections on the app and, connecting over shared interests with their love of Rick and Morty, Arctic Monkeys and Grand Theft Auto V starting new discussions and budding friendships. 

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In addition to the Add by tag feature, the new update includes a change to the live-streaming feature. Yubo redesigned the whole onboarding process and has made it clearer to those on livestream if they are a “watcher” (viewer of a livestream) or a “streamer” (hosting or appearing in the livestream) via a tooltip which will be visible the entire livestream to make users feel more connected and comfortable. 

Sacha Lazimi, Co-founder and CEO of Yubo, said “We want to ensure that our users have the best possible experience on the app, meeting new like-minded people and creating building friendships and connections with others. The launch of the new updates and features has already proven to improve the user experience and remove any barriers that were previously in the way with over six million users now making use of our tag updates and features. We will continue to listen to our community and introduce changes on the app to reflect their needs and their experience.”

Yubo is proud to be leading the way when it comes to creating a personalised user experience and bringing communities together who have similar interests and values.

Music? TV? Gaming? Yubo, the leading platform for Gen Z to socialise online, has made it even easier for users to connect and make friends based on their interests with it’s new in-app onboarding interface and updates to its tags feature. 

Yubo Introduces Features to Unite Gen Z by Interests

3 minutes read

- Written by Yubo Team

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