Apple says its App Store is 'a safe and trusted place.'
We found 1,500 reports of unwanted sexual behavior on six apps, some targeting minors.
More than 1,500 complaints of unwanted sexual approaches, many targeting children, have been made against popular social networking apps in Apples App Store, in contrast to what Apple prominently markets as a safe and trusted place, according to a Washington Post investigation.
The complaints about popular social media platforms that connect strangers in video conversations, known as random chat apps, serve as digital cries for help. A man who is sick in the head and disgusting decided to show some things that shouldnt have been shown, read one review of the app Monkey in September. Another one from last month warned, This is a lawsuit waiting to happen. Predators are all over this site."
Using a machine learning algorithm to identify App Store reviews containing reports of unwanted sexual content, racism and bullying, The Post sifted through more than 130,000 reviews of six random chat apps, all but one of which were ranked in the top 100 for social networking by Apple earlier this month. The Post manually inspected the more than 1,500 reviews that made mention of uncomfortable sexual situations.
About 2 percent of all iOS reviews of Monkey, ranked 10th most popular in Apples social networking category earlier this month, contained reports of unwanted sexual experiences, according to The Posts investigation. Despite that, the app was approved for users 12 and older. The other apps included in the investigation were Yubo, ChatLive, Chat for Strangers, Skout and Holla. At least 19 percent of the reviews on ChatLive mentioned unwanted sexual approaches.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/11/22/apple-says-its-app-store-is-safe-trusted-place-we-found-reports-unwanted-sexual-behavior-six-apps-some-targeting-minors/?_=ddid-1-1574424060&arc404=true&wpisrc=al_news__alert-economy--alert-national&wpmk=1