2 ms·

I think you're a bit confused. The issue is not teens posing as adults, but sexual predators posing as teens. Appeals to the sense of honesty of perpetrators of

• dangrossman 14y ago
  He's not confused at all. He's saying that by forcing teens to pose as adults to continue using the app, they can no longer help educate teens about how to avoid predators, nor offer them specific features to help them, because they won't know who they are. It's not the sex predators those features are for, it doesn't matter that they'd ignore them.
  • jknupp 14y ago
    Perhaps in theory, but realistically this makes no sense. This is not a pornography site, where there is some taboo prize for lying about one's age. It's a social network, only as useful as the number of connections a user has on it. What is the likelyhood that a teen, and enough of their friends, will sign up again under a false name and somehow work out a system for determining the false names of all their friends? The benefit to the staggering minority of teens that would have been receptive to a sexual predator awareness message from an _iPhone app not at all sexual in nature_ is far outweighed by the overt protection of all teens using the service. How popular do you think it will likely be amongst pedophilies without potential victims?
    • kogir 14y ago
      I'm pretty sure Skout is for meeting new people. So they'll just sign up with the same names and a different email, and start fresh. In fact, we had to start blocking problem users by unique device ID. Nothing else would deter them. Pedophiles will target them using largely the same methods as before: mainly scrolling through pictures. Sure, search won't help as much, but it's hardly a deterrent.