Some teenagers say French social networking app Yubo, which has 18M downloads in the US, ignored reports that the Uvalde shooter threatened violence on the app
Young people who met the alleged gunman online said he had threatened to kidnap, rape or kill.
Washington Post
Context & Ripple Effects
The allegations arrive after Yubo’s rapid expansion: a prior profile described surging engagement on the teen social app and at least 40 million users. That growth makes the handling of user safety reports a central operating issue, not a peripheral moderation case.
They also fit reporting days earlier that young gunmen use private and disappearing messages across services including Yubo to share violent plans beyond moderators’ view. The reported complaints raise the narrower question of whether warnings that did reach Yubo were acted on.
First-order effects
Yubo faces immediate scrutiny from its teen users over its response to reports of threats attributed to the Uvalde shooter, putting its reporting and escalation practices at issue.
For users who reported the alleged threats, the episode undermines confidence that a report on Yubo leads to a timely safety response.
Second-order effects
Other services named in the earlier reporting—Snapchat, Instagram and Discord—face added pressure to show how reports are handled when harmful planning occurs in private or disappearing messages.
Yubo’s growth story is now more closely tied to safety operations: investors and users have a clearer reason to evaluate whether the app’s reporting systems keep pace with its engagement.
Third-order effects
If reports of violent threats continue to surface across private-message products, platform competition will increasingly turn on credible reporting, review and escalation systems rather than user growth alone.
The pattern points to a harder moderation problem for teen-oriented social networks: safety systems must address content that is designed to be private or short-lived while still responding to direct user warnings.
The trend: Teen social platforms are being judged more directly on whether their safety-reporting systems can respond to warnings around private and disappearing communications.
New: The Uvalde gunman had threatened to rape, kill and kidnap girls in online messages before the attack. But teens who reported it were ignored, and some saw his angry misogyny as just “how online is” https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... @SilviaElenaFF @Cat_Zakrzewski @NaomiNixW…
NEW: We interviewed teen girls who met the alleged Uvalde gunman online and said he had threatened to kidnap, rape or kill them. But either their reports were ignored or they said that's just “how online is.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
“They went mostly ignored.” Violence against girls & women is at the root of so many mass shootings, and this issue itself is never taken as seriously as it needs to be. https://twitter.com/...
I don't know a woman with any sort of public presence on the internet who isn't somewhat if not entirely numb to rape & death threats from men/boys because that's how our nervous systems allow us to continue existing in a place where those threats are routinely ignored. https://t…
Such a perfect slice of this moment of life. A school shooter sends misogynist abuse & death threats to women online, but it's such a “normal” part of life reporting it does nothing so the women ignore it. We live in such dark times. https://twitter.com/...
This is so important. We ignore violent threats toward girls and women online and off, even as we know they're meaningful signals. + https://twitter.com/...
We don't treat womens safety seriously at all. I covered crime for years and every DV homicide I ever covered had a blazing bright row of red flags leading up to the violence that were dismissed as trivial. We treat stalking and harassment lightly to our massive detriment https:/…
Imagine if misogyny was treated like the threat to all of society that it has been and is. Imagine if it wasn't seen as women's problem to endure silently. Society sacrifices women to violent men, in hopes that they remain preoccupied with us and don't set their sights on them. h…
The Venn diagram of: 1) men that women have raised alarms about, over abuse or violence against women; and 2) mass shooters, is damn close to a circle. https://twitter.com/...
Ignoring this is lethal. Deadly. The magnitude of societal reform we need is on the same level as where this country was between 1890 and 1915. Social Media Companies, school officials, cops, politicians, ect. The Bayeux Tapestry isn't big enough for the failure list. Disgraceful…
The fact Kiwifarms doxes people and has similar clowns posting sh!t like this shooter, and literally nothing gets done ever. Several of us even received handwritten threats MAILED to us. @fbi and US Postal Inspection were all involved, police reports made, and literally nothing h…
“Many of his threats to assault women, the young women added, barely stood out from the undercurrent of sexism that pervades the Internet — something they said they have fought back against but also come to accept.” https://twitter.com/...
“Red-flag laws” are useless so long as moderators and participants on message boards see so many red flags they just ignore them after a while. https://twitter.com/...
“One teen who reported Ramos on the social app Yubo said nothing happened as a result...Some also suspected this was just how teen boys talked on the Internet these days — a blend of rage and misogyny so predictable they could barely tell each one apart.” https://twitter.com/...
“Some also suspected this was just how teen boys talked on the Internet these days — a blend of rage and misogyny so predictable they could barely tell each one apart. One girl, discussing moments when he had been creepy and threatening, said that was just ‘how online is.’” https…
Teen girls had frequently reported the #Uvalde gunman's social media accounts for harassment and bullying. But they said their reports were ignored. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
Yubo, the group-hangout “Tinder for teens,” won't say whether the company received reports of abuse about the gunman. One teen told us dozens were sent, and nothing happened. “I witnessed him harass girls and threaten them with sexual assault” https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...