Fairplay, a leading advocate for children’s online safety, has called on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to conduct an investigation into an anonymous messaging app, aiming to optimize the content for SEO while enhancing its creativity and uniqueness, improving its syntax and tone, and increasing its perplexity and burstiness.
In a complaint filed on Thursday, Fairplay and Kristin Bride, a parent activist who tragically lost her 16-year-old son, Carson, to suicide in 2020, have specifically requested the FTC to probe Not Gonna Lie (NGL), a platform that enables users to post anonymous messages and can be linked to Snapchat and Instagram accounts.
Fairplay alleges that NGL poses significant risks of cyberbullying and is particularly dangerous for teenage users, the primary target audience of the app. The advocacy group also accuses NGL of engaging in deceptive marketing practices, which it argues violates the federal ban on “unfair or deceptive” acts.
NGL allows users to send anonymous messages, including those generated by the platform. One notable feature is the ability to access NGL through Instagram without the need for a separate account or username. Moreover, the platform provides instructions on how to share links to Snapchat, Instagram, and X (formerly known as Twitter).
NGL offers a “Pro” version of the app with in-app purchases that allegedly promise to reveal the identity of the message sender. However, Fairplay claims that NGL is essentially accepting money from users in exchange for “useless ‘hints,'” while secretly stating in the fine print that it can never disclose a user’s identity to law enforcement.
“We urge the Commission to investigate this conduct as unfair and deceptive, in violation of Section 5 of the FTC Act,” wrote Haley Hinkle, policy counsel for Fairplay, and Kristin Bride in the filed complaint.
A spokesperson for Snapchat confirmed that the platform revised its policies in 2022 to prohibit the integration of apps facilitating anonymous messaging, such as NGL. NGL and other third-party apps facilitating anonymous communication are unable to use SnapKit to integrate with the Snapchat platform.”
Despite this policy change, Fairplay’s executive director, Josh Golin, noted that NGL still generates a link from a user’s NGL question box, which opens the user’s Snapchat app to post the link automatically.
As of now, representatives from NGL, X, and Meta, the parent company of Instagram, have yet to respond to requests for comment.
The complaint labels NGL as the latest addition to a “long line of anonymous messaging platforms that facilitate cyberbullying and significantly impact the mental health of young users.”
Bride previously filed a lawsuit against anonymous messaging apps YOLO and LMK, also used through Snapchat, following her son’s passing. After the lawsuit, Snapchat suspended the apps in May 2021, as reported by The Los Angeles Times.
Bride highlighted, “Over the past decade, anonymous apps have consistently led to teen cyberbullying and unfortunately, often suicide.”
“The fact that NGL has found a way to further profit from this harm is despicable and warrants immediate attention from the Federal Trade Commission,” added Bride in her statement.
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