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

Introducing Yubo Games

Yubo launches a gaming feature in a bid to bring new levels of interactivity to its users, as social distancing measures remain in place worldwide. To Be Honest, Would You Rather, Draw Quiz and Let Them Guess, are among the first in a series of free games to be launched as part of the new package, and were created in collaboration with Yubo’s global community of Gen Z users.

Tips and Tricks On How To Make the Most Out of Yubo Lives

Maintaining Good Mental Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic

In recent months, Yubo has experienced a significant rise in user conversations, with a 300% increase in the number of people taking part in live streams and a 310% increase in the length of live streams.  The Yubo team has been working tirelessly in response to this surge in activity, in order to bring exciting new features to new and existing users so that they are able to socialise in a variety of ways during the ongoing pandemic.

To Be Honest: To Be Honest is the ultimate game of truth that can be played amongst new and old friends through live-streams! A streamer is selected at random and has 30 seconds to answer the question about themselves that appears on-screen, for example, ‘Who would you take with you if you were stranded on a desert island?’ Fellow gamers can vote for their favourite answers, to reveal whose inner-truths are most popular.

Yubo Introduces Features to Unite Gen Z by Interests

Would You Rather: Would You Rather enables Yubo users to discover new friends with similar interests. Gamers answer 20 questions, where they must choose their preferred option from two possible responses. At the end of the game, players are able to view which users had the most answers in common with them!

Draw Quiz: A twist on the much-loved classic, Pictionary. Users must attempt to identify words based on pictures drawn by other players. The user who has successfully drawn the most words at the end of the game wins.

Let Them Guess: A new take on the popular US game, Heads Up!, where users have 1 minute each to get creative in describing the words that appear on their screens, without mentioning the word itself.

Yubo collaborated with its community of 30 million global users in the development of the gaming feature. Just last month, we released a poll on the platform, asking users which games they’d most like to play on the app. Yubo has also implemented tools within the app to allow users to suggest content, such as questions or words, that they’d like incorporated across all 4 games in order to keep content fresh and relevant for their users.

Yubo Co-Founder and CEO, Sacha Lazimi, says: “This has been a community-based process from start to finish, as we always ensure that our users have their say. The main aim of this latest launch is to bring fun and positivity to our teenage community, helping them to stay connected with one another during this heightened period of online activity, when unfortunately, it’s not possible for them to connect in person.”

Yubo Launches New Gaming Feature

3 minutes read

- Written by Yubo Team

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