The fact that App Store being one of the largest app stores in the world yields good results for Apple – and very bad ones.
Recently, the company is in the middle of a discussion about some chat apps distributed on the platform, and for a serious reason: many of them are receiving complaints for having “Unwanted sexual approaches”, as reported by Washington Post.
According to the report, more than 1,500 complaints were filed in the App Store against such chat apps, many of them focused on children.
In many cases, as you might imagine, it is not exactly the app that has such an unwanted approach, but it does allow users to propagate this type of content.
In this sense, the Washington Post revealed that most of these applications do not require users to register; that is, even if there is an indicative classification, users of almost any age can access them without restriction.
Among the apps analyzed are Monkey, Yubo, LiveChat, Chat for Strangers, Skout and HOLLA.
According to the investigation, 19% of LiveChat reviews mention some kind of sexual approach:
A sick man with a troubled head decided to show some things that shouldn’t have been shown.
That [app] it is a potential lawsuit.
Predators are all over the site.
Apple stated that it “carefully analyzes all applications” sent to the App Store (as we know, the company’s app review process is very rigorous, but has its flaws), stating that more than 100,000 apps are evaluated weekly and filtered “by means of algorithms and human curators”.
We created the App Store to be a safe and reliable place for our customers to get apps, and we take all reports of inappropriate or illegal content seriously.
If the purpose of these applications is not inadequate, we will give developers a chance to ensure that they are complying [as regras] correctly, but we won’t hesitate to remove them from the App Store if they don’t.
Indeed, this is the type of serious problem that can reach thousands (if not millions) of users.
For your safety and that of your family, learn how to enable iOS restrictions to prevent apps, websites and other sensitive content from being accessed by children.
via 9to5Mac
