On Spotafriend, a mobile phone application marketed to teenagers, “Logan” had been a boy that is 17-year-old to meet up with other young adults in north park County.
In reality, police state, he had been a 21-year-old guy who utilized the application to start out an illegal intimate relationship having a girl that is underage.
Spotafriend, which boasts significantly more than a million users, is touted on its web site as a way that is new teens to produce buddies, but the majority of observers have actually described it as “Tinder for Teens,” likening it to your popular relationship software for grownups.
The similarities are fairly apparent.
On Spotafriend, teenagers amongst the many years of 13 and 19 are invited to swipe through the pages of other people within their vicinity, the same as grownups do in the Tinder software. In the event that users on both ends swipe appropriate, it’s a “match” — letting them deliver communications one to the other.
That’s exactly exactly exactly what makes Spotafriend, as well as other social apps which are marketed to teenagers, possibly dangerous, based on police force officials and parent teams. Inspite of the organizations’ tries to protect against misuse, application users can’t actually make sure the people they’re trading messages with are who they do say they truly are — or if they’re even teens at all.
“Any software that encourages children to create connections with strangers is dangerous,” said Kristen Amicone, director of training and technology in the north park Police Foundation. Continue reading “Why authorities are cautious about Spotafriend, Yellow along with other teen social apps”