What is Yubo? What parents need to know

Yubo is a social media app created in 2015 by French engineering students. Originally called Yellow, it helped users share their Snapchat handles before evolving into a full social discovery platform. It now has more than 80 million signups worldwide.

Its social discovery feature encourages friendship with people from all over the world. Users can swipe through profiles, join group livestreams, and connect based on shared interests identified by ‘tags.’ Yubo uses age gating to separate users into different communities based on age to limit interaction between teens and adults to help keep users safe on the app.

The ‘Yuboverse’ lets users live stream with up to 10 people, play virtual games and share screens.

Yubo can be downloaded from Google Play and the Apple App Store.

Who uses Yubo?

Yubo is most popular among 16-25-year-olds. Gen Z makes up about 99% of Yubo users. Around 70% of Yubo users today are aged 18 and over.

It gained popularity in recent years, especially over the Covid-19 pandemic that saw more interactions online. For instance, from December 2019 to November 2020, the user base increased from 25 million registered users to more than 40 million. In 2022, it reached 60 million users.

Once you download the app, you must create an account. To do that, you need to provide your date of birth and take a selfie using Yoti’s facial age estimation technology. Users then go through age verification before they can use the platform.

Live streaming

Users can live stream in real time through the app. Livestreaming on Yubo is designed to mimic offline group hangouts, with an average of 5 users per ’Live.’ 95% of Yubo Lives have zero ‘watchers,’ meaning that in nearly all Lives, everyone is actively engaged, talking and participating, not just spectating . The user streaming the video can choose whether to add viewers as new friends.

The live streaming feature is the app’s core feature and connects people with similar interests.

Making new friends

Yubo’s design encourages users to make friends and chat with people from all over the world. By eliminating likes and follows, Yubo hopes to empower young people to be their true selves and form genuine connections. Users can also set filters for the age, gender and location of the content they want to see.

Yubo users must be at least 16 years old to use the app. This is an increase from their former age rating of 13+. The platform has a robust age verification process in place to ensure that kids under this age cannot create an account. Age verification helps strengthen age gating to limit interaction between teens and adults.

All users must complete age verification when they sign up or log in for the first time since the requirement was implemented. Yubo is the first major social media platform in the world to introduce age-verification protocols for 100% of its users.

Yoti age estimation

The Yubo app uses Yoti’s facial age estimation technology to estimate a user’s age based on a live selfie taken within the app. This system is highly accurate, with it correctly determining the age group a person belongs to 99% of the time. However, if facial age estimation results are inconclusive, you may provide identification for Yubo to manually review. About 87% of people are able to successfully verify their age on Yubo at first attempt.

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These measures improve the feeling of safety among users on Yubo, with over 79% of surveyed users saying they feel safer on Yubo compared to other social platforms. Requiring age verification to create an account ensures users interact with genuine profiles on the app.

Age checks do not stop after this initial verification. The Yoti verification technology can re-verify users when live streaming or engaging in suspicious activity to detect bots, frauds and impersonators.

Underage users

When signing up, users must enter their birthday. If it shows they are under the minimum age, they receive the following screen:

 The age verification process makes it more difficult for underage children to use the platform.

The age verification process also makes it more difficult for adults to pretend they are younger than they say. If the selfie they take doesn’t match with the age they inputted, they need to provide additional identification.

Yubo uses age gating to separate users into different communities based on age. Still, it’s important to help your child understand why these restrictions are in place so they don’t come across inappropriate content or connect with the wrong people.

Location sharing

If you have locations enabled, you can find friends nearby. Your location is then shown to other potential ‘friends’ along with your name and age.

Location settings can be customised through privacy protocols.

Inappropriate content

Like any social media app, inappropriate content is a risk on Yubo, especially with the integral live streaming feature. However, Yubo introduced real-time content moderation for livestreams to enforce their Community Guidelines.

If the algorithm flags something, human Safety Specialists intervene. This includes taking down live streams, banning users (temporarily or permanently) and reporting to law enforcement when necessary.

To keep teens safe, teach them how to report and block inappropriate content if they come across it. When reporting content, users can upload images, screenshots and videos to support their report.

Bullying and hate speech

Also, like other online platforms, bullying and hate speech may show on Yubo. Again, the live streaming feature may make it more difficult to filter such language. However, as mentioned above, AI filters work to monitor live streams.

Additionally, teaching your child when they need to report or block someone, including what bullying and hate speech look like, will help keep them and the platform safe.

Grooming and exploitation

Despite the safety features Yubo puts in place, there is always a risk online of grooming and exploitation. What’s important is having conversations about how these things might appear. It’s also important to note that grooming and exploitation happens between children and not just from adults.

Scams

Scams are rampant everywhere online, but social media offers a lot more opportunity. Whether it’s through social media phishing attacks or NFTs and crypto scams, your child could be targeted. Stay aware and teach your child to think before they click on something unfamiliar.

As Yubo has evolved over nearly a decade, the creators have developed different ways to keep its users safe. They do this through:

• age and identity verification: when a user signs up, they must complete a robust age and identity check using facial age estimation technology.
• separate communities: age gating separates users into different communities based on age to limit interaction between teens and adults.
• block and report functions: Yubo users can block or report other users and content that go against the community guidelines.
• muted words: users can set muted words for ‘everyone’ or ‘everyone except my friends’. This helps them take control of what strangers can say to them.
• SafeBlur feature: this AI-driven feature automatically blurs potentially harmful content in direct messages unless a user chooses to opt out.
• content moderation: Yubo checks profiles and monitors live streams and direct messages to help prevent risky behaviour and offenders. AI filters and human Safety Specialists work together to do this.
• pop-up alerts: if a user is about to share something private like their phone number or where they live, a pop-up will help them think twice. This helps protect their personal data.
• custom Swipes: users can filter who comes up in their Swipes. For instance, a user might only want to see content from others in their area or specific ages within their age group, so they can set that to be the case.

Many of these safety features are enabled by default, and cannot be disabled by under-18s.

Step-by-step safety

Review and set privacy controls with your teen.

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If your child uses the app or wants to use the app, there are various things you can do to help them stay safe and have fun. 

• Set up privacy controls: go through the Yubo app with your child and set up limitations together. This will help them take ownership of their safety and will give you the opportunity to talk about why those limitations are important.
• Have regular conversations: talk about what live streams they see, the friends they make and the content they interact with. Taking interest in their digital lives will help them feel more confident about opening up if something goes wrong.
• Explore the app yourself: gain confidence in their online safety by creating your own Yubo account. Learn about how it works so you’re better able to support your child if they need it.
• Talk about the ‘hard stuff’: it can be uncomfortable to talk about online safety issues like grooming, child-on-child abuse, cyberbullying and other like-issues. However, talking about these things before they happen will help prepare your child in case they do.