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Life360 Cofounder/CEO here. You might not appreciate what we do, but most families use this in mature ways and it is indisputable that we have saved literally t

Life360 Cofounder/CEO here. You might not appreciate what we do, but most families use this in mature ways and it is indisputable that we have saved literally thousands of lives through our SOS and crash detection and emergency dispatch features. We also have a “bubbles” option that enables you to leave safety features on without sharing exact location

codezero 4y ago
How much hands on onboarding is done with each install to educate them about how this software can be abused before they use it? To be clear, I’m hoping to be schooled here as I haven’t onboarded with the product before, not to dunk. Are people informed about how others have been manipulated with the software, and software like it? Put another way, what do you do to make sure the software is used in a mature way that is pragmatic about the possible abuses, and the realities of how abusive people can manipulate others?
- crhulls 4y ago
  I wouldn't say we do that much in onboarding, but we do have a resources page specifically for misuse, and we made a feature called Bubbles that allows you to turn off exact location but still keep all safety features active. We also are a two-way street by default, e.g. if you can see me, I can see you. Our competitors usually have a parent and child version where one person is in control. I've also taken a lot of vitriol for publicly calling out parents who misuse the app. This culminated in a TikTok campaign that got over 7 billion views publicizing our privacy features (look up #ghostmode - the number is not an exaggeration)
  - codezero 4y ago
    Thanks for the response. I get that it's a tough space to be in, and I appreciate you taking the time to respond, especially to a crowd that is pretty aggressive about this kind of software.
yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
Style note: may I suggest prefixing your comment with "I’m the founder and CEO of Life360"? You did above, but not everyone will read in that order and it's useful context.
- crhulls 4y ago
  done, thanks
clipsy 4y ago
> You might not appreciate what we do, but most families use this in mature ways Respectfully, if you know this for a fact can you provide backing data (and methodologies) behind this conclusion? I think having concrete data here would go a long way towards making this a much more productive conversation. To be clear: I do personally believe that you are trying to make a product with primarily or solely above board, legitimate usage -- I'm just not convinced that you have good data on this given the general difficulties around collecting data on abuse of the product. Certainly in the case of sex trafficking, the (ab)users will not admit to their behavior and the victims are likely unable to.
- crhulls 4y ago
  I admit the data is squishy, but we have customer support data, user reviews, and general user feedback that makes me feel very confident extreme misuse is an outlier. I'll admit I was a bit surprised how controlling some parents are, and we built our Bubbles feature to address this - you can turn off exact location and still keep safety features active. We encourage all teens to use Bubbles and have a conversation with their parents about responsible use of the app.
patmcc 4y ago
I do appreciate it, especially those safety features. My concern is around the kind of power imbalances within families that make it very difficult for it to actually be used in mature ways. The 'bubbles' feature sounds great, except the parent knows it's been turned off. I saw your other comment and checked out your TikTok, from a quote there: "This is the middle ground. If parents didn’t get notified, they would go to more aggressive and restrictive apps." So you know parents are being overly restrictive and are making tools to help them. (Thanks for adding that you're the Cofounder. I wasn't getting the sense you were hiding that or anything, but good to be open about it). edit: also, want to be clear - I think you're misguided, not evil or anything.

codezero 4y ago

How much hands on onboarding is done with each install to educate them about how this software can be abused before they use it? To be clear, I’m hoping to be schooled here as I haven’t onboarded with the product before, not to dunk. Are people informed about how others have been manipulated with the software, and software like it? Put another way, what do you do to make sure the software is used in a mature way that is pragmatic about the possible abuses, and the realities of how abusive people can manipulate others?

crhulls 4y ago
I wouldn't say we do that much in onboarding, but we do have a resources page specifically for misuse, and we made a feature called Bubbles that allows you to turn off exact location but still keep all safety features active. We also are a two-way street by default, e.g. if you can see me, I can see you. Our competitors usually have a parent and child version where one person is in control. I've also taken a lot of vitriol for publicly calling out parents who misuse the app. This culminated in a TikTok campaign that got over 7 billion views publicizing our privacy features (look up #ghostmode - the number is not an exaggeration)
- codezero 4y ago
  Thanks for the response. I get that it's a tough space to be in, and I appreciate you taking the time to respond, especially to a crowd that is pretty aggressive about this kind of software.

yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago

Style note: may I suggest prefixing your comment with "I’m the founder and CEO of Life360"? You did above, but not everyone will read in that order and it's useful context.

crhulls 4y ago
done, thanks

clipsy 4y ago

> You might not appreciate what we do, but most families use this in mature ways Respectfully, if you know this for a fact can you provide backing data (and methodologies) behind this conclusion? I think having concrete data here would go a long way towards making this a much more productive conversation. To be clear: I do personally believe that you are trying to make a product with primarily or solely above board, legitimate usage -- I'm just not convinced that you have good data on this given the general difficulties around collecting data on abuse of the product. Certainly in the case of sex trafficking, the (ab)users will not admit to their behavior and the victims are likely unable to.

crhulls 4y ago
I admit the data is squishy, but we have customer support data, user reviews, and general user feedback that makes me feel very confident extreme misuse is an outlier. I'll admit I was a bit surprised how controlling some parents are, and we built our Bubbles feature to address this - you can turn off exact location and still keep safety features active. We encourage all teens to use Bubbles and have a conversation with their parents about responsible use of the app.

patmcc 4y ago

I do appreciate it, especially those safety features. My concern is around the kind of power imbalances within families that make it very difficult for it to actually be used in mature ways. The 'bubbles' feature sounds great, except the parent knows it's been turned off. I saw your other comment and checked out your TikTok, from a quote there: "This is the middle ground. If parents didn’t get notified, they would go to more aggressive and restrictive apps." So you know parents are being overly restrictive and are making tools to help them. (Thanks for adding that you're the Cofounder. I wasn't getting the sense you were hiding that or anything, but good to be open about it). edit: also, want to be clear - I think you're misguided, not evil or anything.