The Gas app, fake human trafficking rings and a climate of distrust
Issue #59
Back in August, a fellow called Nikita Bier launched an app called Gas. It’s a fairly simple platform with one purpose: it lets high school students anonymously compliment each other. Sounds harmless—and even a sort of nice. A compliment now and then can do wonders for our self-esteem, and it’s certainly a nice antidote to the cyber-bullying and negativity that tends to dominate the headlines. Maybe that’s why Gas caught on. The app was a hit and since late August, it has been downloaded over 5.1 million times. At some schools, the entire student body seemed to have installed the app. Kids were anonymously complimenting and being complimented, something many of them found validating.
Then came the rumors. Just as Gas was really taking off, a story started circulating that the app was at the center of a human trafficking ring. Parenting groups, schools, local news outlets and even police departments were sharing the unfounded story, sometimes alleging that 50 children had already gone missing. In reality, the app is limited in its features. It’s a basic polling platform that lets users anonymously cast votes on pre-written compliments that are then sent to mutual connections. It doesn’t track users’ locations and it doesn’t allow users to exchange messages. Because of the way the app is built, it’s simply not possible for it to be at the center of a human trafficking ring. Even so, countering the rumors has become a full-time job for the small team running the app.
This might seem like a weird, runaway rumor, but it’s not an isolated incident. According to the Washington Post, Gas isn’t the first app to be falsely embroiled in these kinds of salacious allegations. It’s happened to a few other apps over the years—ironically, even one designed to help women stay safe while out walking. This is not an isolated incident, so why are some apps being falsely accused of sex trafficking? And why are users, parents, school districts, news stations and police departments believing it?
The answer, according to some experts, is a broader crisis of trust in the technology industry. I believe it’s easy for this kind of rumor to go viral because so many major players in the tech world have behaved badly. We’ve grown used to big platforms mishandling our data, manipulating our attention, collecting our information without informed consent and operating without any meaningful transparency. As a parent, I already know that there’s a lack of trust in technology. In fact, I founded my own tech company because I didn’t trust the existing platforms to do right by my children.
Technology has gotten a bad rap because some big and highly visible companies have pretty much done what they wanted without a lot of regard for user safety or privacy. They’ve built platforms with unhealthy features and gone to great lengths to obscure how it all works. The sex trafficking ring in the Gas app is made up, but the anxiety and fear that parents take on every day are very real. But ultimately, the biggest dangers for children are most often hiding in plain sight.
The platforms that most adults use every day and consider relatively safe can be quite dangerous for children. The apps that let grown-ups connect with strangers, exchange DMs and broadcast personal information to the public are the apps that put children at risk. And, apps that are end-to-end encrypted might be considered safe for adults, but they’re a threat to children’s safety.
Kids deserve to experience the best of technology without exposure to the worst of it. This is something we firmly believe at Kinzoo. Our mission is to be the most trusted brand for incorporating technology into our children’s lives—and I hope that other companies take a similar approach because clearly, trust is lacking.
A deeper dive
Here are a few helpful resources in case you want to really dig into today's topic:
The Gas app was flooded with negative reviews, and lots of viral posts circulated on other social platforms claiming it was connected to human trafficking. The founder even received death threats—and still, it’s not clear where the rumor began.
It might be true that Gas isn’t a human trafficking threat, but the instances of online grooming have grown at an alarming rate over the past few years. According to one study out of the UK, Instagram was the most commonly used app for child grooming crimes during pandemic lockdowns.
TL;DR
Too long; didn't read. It shouldn't be a full-time job to keep up on industry news, so here is a mercifully quick summary of some other notable developments:
In case you missed it, Elon Musk is now the owner and CEO of Twitter. He famously bought the company for 44 billion dollars—and is under a lot of financial pressure to make the platform profitable. So far, it’s been a little chaotic, which just goes to show how difficult it is to get business models right in the tech world. Twitter is a platform that’s loved and loathed by millions, and they still struggle to figure out the revenue aspect of the business.
The state of California is enacting new child privacy laws, which will be going into effect in 2024. In a nutshell, the law requires that companies build products for children with kids’ wellbeing in mind. According to PEW, ”a similar law in the United Kingdom, used as a model for California’s legislation, yielded global changes on major platforms including YouTube and Facebook. Shortly before that law went into effect, for instance, YouTube made teenagers’ uploads private by default and disabled an autoplay feature that nudged them to keep watching longer.” Hopefully, this California legislation leads to positive changes as well.
And lastly
Here are a few more pieces of original writing from me and my team—just in case you're keen for more:
Anita Cleare is a parenting coach and the author of The Working Parent's Survival Guide. She has incredible advice for helping children navigate the digital world, and my team had the chance to sit down with her and learn some of her strategies. Check out the full interview here.
When we’re giving our kids access to technology, the safest bet is to give them platforms designed specifically for younger users. My team put together an article about why WhatsApp might not be the best option for children, and you can check it out here.