Another dad said, “Within 10 minutes of logging into this app my child was inundated with sexual requests, mostly by men of age 19 to 29. One mom told us her daughter was contacted by a man who sent her a video of him masturbating to her videos. This is a great step.īut, we’ve received emails from very concerned parents about what their children are being exposed to. They currently engage two image recognition companies to scan user content for anything inappropriate.
The Monkey app’s owner explained in great detail the steps the app is taking to analyze and moderate potentially sexualized content in the app. The app’s ecosystem (look and feel) resembles Snapchat, which makes it comfortable for kids to use. This statement from their privacy statement summarizes this thinking:ĭue to the inherent nature of the internet and related technology, we do not guarantee the protection of information under our control against loss, misuse, or alteration. Teens need to remember that nothing is private and there’s always a risk that what is done is secret could be made public. In summary, Monkey does collect a lot of data about its users and shares all three types of information with third parties as needed. Each of these is covered in the App’s Privacy Statement and has different levels of protection. Teens who use the app will be sharing three types of information, including personal information (name, profile picture, date of birth), user contributed content (the photos, texts, videos, and screen shots shared with other users), and automatic information (browser, I.P. They claim to have 24/7 content moderation (). In fact, the Monkey app’s owners called us at Protect Young Eyes (which we appreciated) in order to make sure we clearly understood the extent of their efforts to keep their community safe. The app is trying to do the right things.
#MONKEY VIDEO CHAT APP VERIFICATION#
What do parents need to know about Monkey/Yee/Monkey Monkoy?įor an app that caters to teens, there’s no age verification.We are more and more of the opinion that apps who cater to kids must have some sort of age verification in place in order to provide a safer environment for young users, but Monkey/Yee/Monkey Monkoy doesn’t have any of this.īullying and user safety are monitored.